You can either have normal life and rising cases or not normal life and cases controlled.What's crucial is the development of variants, and that depends in part on the number of cases.
What's crucial is the development of variants, and that depends in part on the number of cases.
By early 2021 we knew of three variants of concern – Kent, South African and Brazilian. And by early February, we had good evidence that the vaccine still worked against the Kent variant, so we focused on the other two.
The signs were good that our vaccine would still prevent death and severe disease, but it looked like they were unlikely to do as well in preventing mild and asymptomatic cases. Later on, of course, we had to think about the Delta variant, which was even more transmissible than the Kent variant.
One day we might be able to design one vaccine that works well against multiple variants (not forgetting that the existing vaccines do, to some extent, still work against them all). We even might be able to design pre-emptive vaccines against variants that we have not yet seen. None of these issues feel insurmountable.
The good news is that we also think it is unlikely that the virus can mutate in a way that keeps it functioning but makes our vaccine completely ineffective.
That's because a change in the spike protein – which allows the coronavirus to enter and infect human cells – that is radical enough to make our vaccine completely ineffective would also, almost certainly, be so extreme as to make the virus non-functional.
I really think the information posted on this forum and by Dr Campbell on Youtube has been vastly superior to most content in the broadcast and print media where a lot of coverage has just been hysterical. The use of terminology in the right context is everything. With a serious story like Covid you don't need to hype it up. All most people want is the facts.Discussed here (although some of his views may make some people's heads explode ha). Will be interesting to see if his prediction ends up being correct when it all comes out in the wash
The whole course of the epidemic is being driven now by virus evolution. The WT was wiped out. The alpha variant represents about 1% of sequenced cases in the UK.Some quotes from Cath Green (one of the Oxford vaccine creators)
The whole 'vaccine escaping variant' doomsday scenario doesn't seem to tally with this. Yes, they may be less effective for certain characteristics but it may be the messaging was designed to achieve an aim. After all, we all know variants will never stop so the idea we must lock up to hide from variants mates no long term sense if you ever want to get back to normal.
Yep. Better than Google is Bluegle.You’ve still better going off advice on here tbf ;-)
We can and must ignore cases.
unless we do not wish to return to normal. Then let’s concern ourselves with cases.