Why are we vaccinating everyone?

[preparetheships]

This is not a goady post and I am not anti vaccine. I am genuinely wondering why we are vaccinating everyone.
The vaccine does not prevent people catching the vaccine, just reduces the symptoms and risk of being seriously ill.
Is it financially worth while vaccinating people who, most likely, will have mild symptoms if any symptoms at all. Or should we just operate a vaccination system similar to the flu vaccination scheme?
I'd be grateful for any links for further information.

@Miasicarisatia

covid is a novel virus meaning there is no natural immunity But some people do not develop the illness even when exposed to the virus .... Therefore some people have natural immunity to the virus.... surely 🤷🏼‍♀️

No, it just means that their individual immune system is effective in fighting off this particular virus. Tbh if they could figure out why some people get really ill and others don’t we’d be able to tackle this and all other viruses much more effectively.

I read speculative reports early on that people who’d contracted another corona virus in the past couple of years might be better at tackling covid but haven’t seen much since. I imagine it’s quite hard to study retrospectively. The ‘common cold’ is caused by corona viruses but also by rhinoviruses, enteroviruses and lots of others so people are only estimated to come into contact with an actual coronavirus a few times in their life.

We don’t really know much about immune systems and how they work. Have you ever been the only person in the house not to catch the flu or a sickness bug? It’s the same principle. There are studies of rare individuals who either manage to fight off HIV or appear to never contract it despite high risks etc. It’s a complete mystery why that happens but scientists have identified that it definitely does happen.

Here are a couple of papers from last year focussing on the idea of some people having pre-existing immunity. But yes, I haven't seen too many recently.

www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.03.367375v1

@Seriouslymole

I have not the faintest idea. It seems that the goalposts have shifted enormously on this.

The initial rhetoric was "once the over 70s have been vaccinated", then it was "once the vulnerable have been vaccinated", now it's "once the entire world has been vaccinated".

Not a clue. Anything else I can fail to help with OP?!

^ I agree with this I remain . Why didn’t they tell us this from the start!

“We don't know how much the vaccine prevents people catching or transmitting disease, but we do know that it reduces symptoms and risk of serious illness.” flu can be a killer so why aren’t we all having that vaccine. Let’s never have viruses so that we all end up with terrible immune systems that’s can’t fight off a sniffle. I haven’t had a cold this year, I dread next winter! I’m not anti vaccine either, just curious!

If the vaccination was mandatory and there were any long-term side effects then those who suffered would be strongly inclined to blame the government who mandated the vaccine.
I think that's the real reason we won't have mandatory covered vaccinations
If there are any long term negative effects from the vaccine then it is surely children who have the most to lose

Now it seems to be “once everyone is vaccinated we will still get new variants, so you still can’t go anywhere we are keeping you safe”

@Suzi888

Now it seems to be “once everyone is vaccinated we will still get new variants, so you still can’t go anywhere we are keeping you safe”

Yep. Starting to feel that way.

[quote bumbleymummy]@notrub

‘If the UK were to achieve herd-immunity against existing strains in the country, then a new mutation could not arise here!”

This isn’t true. Herd immunity doesn’t mean that no one will ever get the virus or that it won’t continue to mutate.

Measles hasn’t been ‘eliminated’ either.[/quote]
You clearly don't understand the meaning of "herd immunity".

In fact, from your numerous anti-vax posts, it's quite clear there's a whole host of things you don't understand. It's a shame that use of a keyboard doesn't fall into this enormous group.

Measles WAS eliminated from the UK, although recently, falls in vaccination rates in certain areas have allowed localised small outbreaks to occur, total

There is evidence that the vaccine does reduce the probability of transmission. And it was also a reasonable expectation in advance even without any evidence. That is why.

www.vox.com/future-perfect/22291959/covid-vaccines-transmission-protect-spread-virus-moderna-pfizer

@bluebellscorner

And to those who say we are not being forced to have the vaccine, I think that’s debatable. Perhaps not forced but coerced? Life will be absolutely miserable for the unvaccinated, who are likely to be denied unrestricted entry into public spaces, and perhaps even schools and workplaces, so the choice isn’t really there. Whatever your feelings are about the vaccine, I think we can agree on this point.

I don’t think coerced is the best way to describe it although I see your point.

However I don’t agree with you since I think any vaccination requirements are likely to have a shelf life, much like we don’t enforce childhood vaccinations before children starting school. Once the immediate threat has been tackled then it becomes of less importance on an individual level.

I don’t feel that your arguments are founded on much more than speculation tbh. There isn’t much of an economic argument behind what you’re suggesting could happen, at least long term. Also there’s the problem of people who can’t be vaccinated - how are those people handled in your scenario?

hmm I agree with this I remain confused. Why didn’t they tell us this from the start

They did. People have selective hearing/reading skills.

Bit dramatic.
Interesting though, we vaccinate infants against measles and polio, because they are the groups most at risk.
Err also most adults have been vaccinated at a young age as well so therefore wouldn't need again as an adult

I read speculative reports early on that people who’d contracted another corona virus in the past couple of years might be better at tackling covid but haven’t seen much since.

It was a hypothesis, which in science is an idea, a possible answer to a question that remains untested and unproven. The question was why some people have very mild covid while others have it severe. A couple of papers were produced where scientists mulled this idea, but the reason that you haven't seen any since is because the hypothesis has been largely rejected.

Sars-cov-2 is so completely different from the few coronaviruses that are grouped under "common colds" that it would have been utterly remarkable if the immunity had "crossed over".

NB, there's a LOT of stuff on covid like this - just because something is once in a scientific paper, it doesn't mean diddly squat. e.g. towards the end of last year there were a couple talking about massive numbers of asymptomatics meaning we were probably already at herd-immunity, with T-Cells being thrown out to explain away why antibody tests showed a much lower number of infected. Evidence has now shown this was all wrong - we weren't anywhere near herd-immunity, there hadn't been millions of asymptomatics.

Sure, an 'anti-vaxx' troll that has posted several links to papers about the effectiveness of vaccines and why they are being spaced out the way they are and has said several times about how well we have done with the vaccine campaign in the UK in relation to vaccinating the most vulnerable. I would consider myself a pretty crap one!

I've noticed that you present yourself as a bit of an 'expert' on some topics but you don't stand up to scrutiny very well, either resorting to insults or just disappearing off the thread. I guess it's easier to 'not engage' with someone when you can't answer basic questions or back up some of your statements. I think people are starting to see through that though.

Measles has never been eliminated in the UK by the way. What years did you think it had been? There have always been cases:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013

@Cornettoninja

Once the immediate threat has been tackled then it becomes of less importance on an individual level.

We don't because we largely have herd-immunity, and where there is a local outbreak, parents are actually remarkably quick to lose their vaccine-hesitancy and herd immunity is restored.

If the anti-vax movement surged though, and nationally we lost herd-immunity to something like rubella for example, well, things might be different!

We've NEVER been in the situation we are currently in - in the past the norm has been a world with terrible diseases and vaccines have slowly pushed them back, improving the world. We've never gone backwards before! People want to return to normal life, and that means herd-immunity as quickly as possible. There literally isn't an alternative.

@preparetheships

Thank you all for your replies.

With the mutations, could the virus still not mutate to fight the vaccine if everyone is vaccinated? So we would get a new vaccine every year?

A virus will mutate randomly only when a person/animal host is infected (This isn't a conscious decision by the virus, it's simply that when it's replicating there's always the chance that mistakes will be made when it's genetic code is being copied).

So the more people infected - the faster the rate of mutation - the more likely new strains will emerge. This is why all the new variants of note have come from places with poorly controlled outbreaks (UK, SA, New York etc). We haven't heard about a NZ and Australian strain simply because the rate of transmission is so low it makes new strain emergence super unlikely.

The vaccines reduce transmission by some degree, and therefore vaccinating everyone will slow down the mutation rate. It's likely that even with these measures we'll need updated vaccines, like they do with flu, but it be a planned, proactive situation, rather than a mad scramble to keep things under control.

@oldegg123

There has been a lot of interest recently in mutations arising in chronically infected patients. So it isn't just a case of new variants arising in countries with high case numbers.

Recent paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03291-y

Reaction and discussion of further examples:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-paper-on-sars-cov-2-mutations-arising-during-treatment-of-chronic-infection/

I know that statistically, the younger you are - the leas likely that Covid will kill you. But what isn’t often talked about is the impacts of long covid, which is a debilitating condition. I work in healthcare and I know a lot of people who are suffering from long covid who cannot return to work. These are fit, healthy people in their thirties and forties who are stills really ill, months after initally contracting covid. Plus, covid can and does kill people in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. It isn’t just ‘old folk’ filling up the ITU beds.

Plus a lot of people have talked about transmission and variants. The risk of variants arising increases the more often that the virus is in circulation. By vaccinating the majority of the population, the risk of variants reduces (providing we don’t import them from other countries, but thats a whole other thread!)

@notrub thanks for the update re: common cold corona viruses. It was an interesting idea at the time.

[quote bumbleymummy]@oldegg123

There has been a lot of interest recently in mutations arising in chronically infected patients. So it isn't just a case of new variants arising in countries with high case numbers.

Recent paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03291-y

Reaction and discussion of further examples:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-paper-on-sars-cov-2-mutations-arising-during-treatment-of-chronic-infection/[/quote]
Yes of course, but I don't see how that's relevant here?

That doesn't change the fact that high case numbers cause increased rate of mutation, and of course vaccination will reduce the number of chronically infected patients.

It’s relevant in that it doesn’t take a high number of cases for mutations to arise. You can have several mutations arising inside a single person.

Yes, having large numbers of immune people, either from recovery after infection or vaccination, will reduce case numbers but it’s not going to stop mutations ever arising, as a pp suggested.

[quote bumbleymummy]@oldegg123

There has been a lot of interest recently in mutations arising in chronically infected patients. So it isn't just a case of new variants arising in countries with high case numbers.

Recent paper:
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03291-y

Reaction and discussion of further examples:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-paper-on-sars-cov-2-mutations-arising-during-treatment-of-chronic-infection/[/quote]
Interesting paper in Nature, but your use of the plural is false. There has been only a single study into a single individual responsible for a single mutation. This gives a fascinating insight into the evolution of a virus, but it isn't remotely relevant to your claim here.

From the second link:
The authors believe that such events are less likely to occur in people with fully functioning immune systems, which seems entirely plausible. But it should not be forgotten that people with weakened immune systems account for a significant proportion of those who suffer most with Covid-19.

So basically, if you want to stop these variants arising in a country you need to fully protect those people and the only way to do that is via herd-immunity.

Because the prevailing opinion around the world is all cases are bad. If we want to return to normal life we need to suppress the virus so it either dies out completely or becomes a non issue due to it being a mild disease

[quote bumbleymummy]Sure, an 'anti-vaxx' troll that has posted several links to papers about the effectiveness of vaccines and why they are being spaced out the way they are and has said several times about how well we have done with the vaccine campaign in the UK in relation to vaccinating the most vulnerable. I would consider myself a pretty crap one!

I've noticed that you present yourself as a bit of an 'expert' on some topics but you don't stand up to scrutiny very well, either resorting to insults or just disappearing off the thread. I guess it's easier to 'not engage' with someone when you can't answer basic questions or back up some of your statements. I think people are starting to see through that though.

Measles has never been eliminated in the UK by the way. What years did you think it had been? There have always been cases:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-confirmed-cases/confirmed-cases-of-measles-mumps-and-rubella-in-england-and-wales-2012-to-2013[/quote]
Agree

@reformedcharacters

publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2019/08/19/measles-in-england/

*WHO defines measles elimination as the absence of circulating measles, in the presence of high vaccine coverage, along with good systems to identify cases of the disease. In countries that have eliminated measles, measles can still occur, but these will be isolated cases that only have limited spread within the community.

The UK initially achieved WHO measles elimination status in 2017, based on data from 2014-2016.*

This is standard knowledge for anyone who actually works in medicine or is connected to it btw.