True, dat: but it's not so much that they have not had family or friends perish from the virus, as not acknowledging that it was the virus that killed them. A nurse in South Dakota described harrowing scenes of patients on her ICU ward, dying on ventilators, pleading for and demanding diagnosis and treatment of their "pneumonia", even their "lung cancer". Instead of focusing on their last communications with their loved ones, they were accusing staff of malpractice and deliberately withholding treatment, of letting them die, because these patients simply won't accept that COVID-19 is a thing and that they have got it. The denial runs deep.
My apprehension revolves around the speed of development and testing (but I can overcome that with sound data). My greater apprehension is down to me having little to no faith in my Government having the public's interests at heart, nor being anything better than inept at their jobs.
What you're seeing with the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is what happens when all obstructions and obstacles (including money) to vaccine research & development are removed.
True, that's why if I see the data I have no real issues. Remove barriers, have Pharma with enough incentive and run test phases in parallel and it will be quick. I just need to be able to convince my mum and gran who will be earlier on in the queue. That shouldn't be too big an issue tbh.
Healthy scepticism is prudent, even about science and especially when it's attached to such a huge profit incentive. The science in much of this is ongoing, for example, prior to the covid vaccines no mRNA platforms have ever been approved for human use. There just isn't any data on short or long-term effects - Cancer isn't outside the realm of possibility. Personally, I plan to continue to be a cynical misanthrope and wait for the data to come in before taking the plunge.
The data is already coming in, that's what phase 3 clinical trials are for... The studies haven't been peer-reviewed yet, but it's really not far away...
Clinical trials can only account for short term effects, not long term. Yup, it uses a viral vector. Here's an article discussing them, and some highlights are: "Not everyone is enthusiastic about vector-based vaccines. “Their reactogenicity profile is not great,” says Petrovsky, meaning they stimulate a strong immune response [...]He says headache and fever have been relatively common in early results from vaccines based on viral vectors. Some people are prone to having convulsions from fevers, so extreme reactions cannot be ruled out" and "With vectors you are always trying to find the sweet spot, too weak, and they don’t work. Too strong, and they are too toxic." Yup. Here's a list of 51 candidates and their mechanisms - https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
To me this is every bit as scary as the virus itself. With all the conspiracy theories and the denial it just means there are people out there willing to risk their own lives, the lives of their families and any unfortunate sod who comes into contact with them. Some of the conspiracy theories would be hilarious if it wasn't regarding such a serious issue. If Covid 19 has shown anything to anyone in the future, who looks back at this period in time, its that we call ourselves a civilisation but we really aren't. It's embarrassing being a human sometimes!!
The only thing that zombie movies have got wrong is that there never are any zombie deniers who will keep arguing it's all a conspiracy-hoax as they get eaten by the zombies.
A high level of mumps antibodies seems to help protect against severe Covid so people who mistankenly avoid the MMR jab are doubling down on risk. I've had mumps, i'll take that as a plus. Will this end up being natural selection at work? Edit: @Nexxo that thought had crossed my mind.
If someone's going to use apocalyptic drama for social commentary, can't we get Rob Bottin out of retirement instead?
Re: vaccines (not that I'm arguing either way), anyone old enough to remember thalidomide? That was apparently a cure-all as well. Until it wasn't.
People are still living with that, that is a valid reason why some may be apprehensive. I know it wasn't a vaccine and things have changed but some will, understandably, point to that and say "you said that was safe". More recently some who received the swine flu vaccine went on to develop narcolepsy, so yeah realistic concerns are very much valid.
The irony of citing thalidomide as a reason to be cautious is that thalidomide is the reason we have multiple stages of clinical trials in humans, including post-approval trials on long-term efficacy and safety. Things have indeed changed in the 63 years since thalidomide launched. Ironic side-note: The FDA never approved thalidomide for use in the US.
Ironic side-side-note: Thalidomide is currently used as a surprisingly effective cancer treatment (myeloma). Go figure.
