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logged out today
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Date: July 23, 2020 06:39PM
Speaking for myself, I'm not expecting a vaccine, even a "pretty effective" one, to act as a silver bullet against Covid. To start, I think we can agree that Covid is far worse than the common flu, so let's use that as a baseline.
Flu vaccines are nothing near 100% preventive. According to the CDC, the current flu vaccine is only 45% effective against the current crop of flu viruses: 37% against strain A and 50% against strain B.
https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20200226interimfluve.htmlThat's about as effective as it generally gets (per the article), and this 45% is the best we can do even with a virus that we are much more familiar with, and have years of experience fighting. Expecting better numbers against a novel CV, and on our initial try, doesn't seem all that reasonable to me.
Second, we still don't know how long antibody-based immunity lasts. There’s some evidence that people can be reinfected not long after supposedly recovering from Covid. Also, antibody count appears to decline after just a few months, calling the very idea of long-term immunity into question. That doesn't bode well for any prospective vaccine, if everyone needs booster shots every few months instead of once a year. Covid hasn't been seasonal like the regular flu; it's shown itself to be a year-round bug.
Finally, there's mutation. Covid has already mutated once, from the original China D strain to the Europe G strain that got into the US. The mutation made it more contagious but fortunately not more lethal. If/when it mutates again, who knows what the effect will be on humans, and whether it will render any vaccines we've developed more powerful – or useless, forcing us to start all over again.
https://www.biospace.com/article/mutated-covid-19-viral-strain-in-us-and-europe-much-more-contagious/While being vaccinated will offer some protection, I still think there will be continued risk in attending church, especially if those vaccinated let their guard down and imagine the world is back to pre-covid normal.