Vaccine

[Skyon Archer]

So the roll out of vaccine for COVID is a slow process worldwide.

But the brutal truth is: It’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated. Months.

By the time (if) we get vaccinated, the COVID will have mutated into many different varieties. Much like the common flu that changes every year, so they have to change the medical cocktail they distribute, so will the COVID vaccine have to be modified.

By the time a vaccine makes it to rural America, it will be a useless medicine that in no way will prevent the strand they are being affected by.

All three known new COVID-19 variants have now been confirmed in the U.S., including a case of the Brazilian strain identified this week in Minnesota.

One vaccine and now three strains of COVID!

We are at COVID 3.0 and still trying to distribute Vaccine 1.0!

[Spice]

Yup and you have a vaccine useless against all the mutations.

[Pete]

Who says its useless

[Skyon Archer]

I won't quote the entire article, you can read it: https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/05/wha ... -vaccines/

The issue is they don't know if the current vaccinations will, or can, mitigate the different variants and for how long. It's a terrible road we've been given to travel.

[Spice]

Who says its useless

The flu virus mutates every year. The vaccine you get is for the previous years strain. Why would the Covid vaccine be any different?

[Pete]

It won't there'll be a different vaccine next year

[Spice]

Yes but not for the current strain. They can't develop a vaccine for a strain that hasn't shown up.

[Pete]

They do it for flu it isnt the same vaccine every year as flu virus mutates too

[Kyng]

Well, the vaccines we've got right now aren't "useless" against the current new variants. They certainly still offer some protection, particularly against severe cases of the disease. There are reasons to be worried, yes - but there's no reason to panic just yet.

Most likely, we'll have to get used to having these vaccines on a routine basis, as these new variants emerge (and the vaccine needs to be modified for them). It's not a good situation to be in, but I think it's the best we can do.

However, I don't think we can carry on shutting down large sections of society for months on end, every time there's a new variant. It made sense back in March, when we needed to buy ourselves time to put our testing/PPE infrastructure in place, but I don't view it as a sustainable long-term solution at all. Ultimately, we humans are social creatures - and we *need* real-life socialising for the sake of our mental health. Most of us will give it up in a few weeks in an emergency, for the sake of the greater good - but nobody's going to give it up forever.

[Pete]

Had my first dose today