[Goose]

In March, my mantra was everyone should wear a mask. It took a little while (far too long that it should), but now it seems even the most pig-headed politicians like Texas Governor Greg Abbott have got the religion about them.

Now, my mantra is forget vaccine as solution. I have talked with three close friends about a vaccine, and between the 4 of us, none of us are going to get any SARS-CoV-2 vaccine unless it is proven effective and proves to have no side effects over at least a year after phase 3 trials. We are not anti-vaxers. We celebrate science and facts and hate anti-vax crowd in general. But we do not think it makes logical sense to get a vaccine that was rushed out and we literally don't have any evidence for its impact over enough time, when we don't even have great insight on long-term Covid-19 impacts. And, we all know if we are cautious and reduce risky behavior, we can avoid infection, because we have and don't intend to change our behavior any time soon. Even if restaurants and bars were open, we wouldn't be going to them. And none of us are going into offices or getting on planes either. I'm sure there are many, many people who think like these friends do, and then there are anti-vaxers on top of this. It's hard to imagine, even if enough vaccine was created and made available, that we could ever reach herd immunity needed for it to work.

What is this "Door #3" y'all are referencing?

OF, I posted the FDA guidelines yesterday. https://thecardboard.org/board/showthread.php?tid=19995 I think that if you read them you might have more confidence in the safety of any vaccine(s) that are approved. One reason I posted this reference is exactly what you are saying. Safety is a concern and we need to know that there are no crazy shortcuts being taken in granting approval. The FDA has a tough balancing act on something like this, so it is great they got this out before the pressure to approve just anything is present. That day might come, and they need to stand their ground. Having a stake in the sand early on will certainly help them do that.

That said, I too don't think the nation should pin all, or even most, of our hopes on the development of a vaccine in the very near future. It may happen, but the safety considerations require testing that simply takes time. Fauci has been optimistic on what is possible, but development of virtually anything takes longer than forecast. There will be setbacks. It is always harder than it looks. I don't think our society will wait until 2021 for a "fix", based on what we are seeing to date.

That is why I favor an all-out attempt to contain the virus through massive track and trace. This approach requires some level of cooperation from the public but not perfect cooperation. That lesser level of cooperation we may be able to get. If we can slap a quarantine on everybody who is a contact of each new positive case pretty reliably, we can keep the disease at a manageable level indefinitely. This will be lots bigger than the efforts in Taiwan or Korea etc. , because they are containing a lower level of underlying disease.  We never got down to that level, and appear unable to do so. That is why we are going to need a lot more of a containment effort than other nations. This is the typical US method of doing things. Hit it with overwhelming force after other attempts have failed.

Maybe not the best way to go about it, but it can be made to work. If a vaccine comes along and cuts down on the disease level, so much the better. The public apparently isn't going to deliver the level of cooperation needed to drop the disease level, and the politicians are not willing (or probably able) to deliver enough coercive force to make them do so. It is also economically impractical to SIP until there is a vaccine. So IMHO a big containment force is the only way to go.

[Goose]

In March, my mantra was everyone should wear a mask. It took a little while (far too long that it should), but now it seems even the most pig-headed politicians like Texas Governor Greg Abbott have got the religion about them.

Now, my mantra is forget vaccine as solution. I have talked with three close friends about a vaccine, and between the 4 of us, none of us are going to get any SARS-CoV-2 vaccine unless it is proven effective and proves to have no side effects over at least a year after phase 3 trials. We are not anti-vaxers. We celebrate science and facts and hate anti-vax crowd in general. But we do not think it makes logical sense to get a vaccine that was rushed out and we literally don't have any evidence for its impact over enough time, when we don't even have great insight on long-term Covid-19 impacts. And, we all know if we are cautious and reduce risky behavior, we can avoid infection, because we have and don't intend to change our behavior any time soon. Even if restaurants and bars were open, we wouldn't be going to them. And none of us are going into offices or getting on planes either. I'm sure there are many, many people who think like these friends do, and then there are anti-vaxers on top of this. It's hard to imagine, even if enough vaccine was created and made available, that we could ever reach herd immunity needed for it to work.

What is this "Door #3" y'all are referencing?

OF, I posted the FDA guidelines yesterday. https://thecardboard.org/board/showthread.php?tid=19995 I think that if you read them you might have more confidence in the safety of any vaccine(s) that are approved. One reason I posted this reference is exactly what you are saying. Safety is a concern and we need to know that there are no crazy shortcuts being taken in granting approval. The FDA has a tough balancing act on something like this, so it is great they got this out before the pressure to approve just anything is present. That day might come, and they need to stand their ground. Having a stake in the sand early on will certainly help them do that.

That said, I too don't think the nation should pin all, or even most, of our hopes on the development of a vaccine in the very near future. It may happen, but the safety considerations require testing that simply takes time. Fauci has been optimistic on what is possible, but development of virtually anything takes longer than forecast. There will be setbacks. It is always harder than it looks. I don't think our society will wait until 2021 for a "fix", based on what we are seeing to date.

That is why I favor an all-out attempt to contain the virus through massive track and trace. This approach requires some level of cooperation from the public but not perfect cooperation. That lesser level of cooperation we may be able to get. If we can slap a quarantine on everybody who is a contact of each new positive case pretty reliably, we can keep the disease at a manageable level indefinitely. This will be lots bigger than the efforts in Taiwan or Korea etc. , because they are containing a lower level of underlying disease.  We never got down to that level, and appear unable to do so. That is why we are going to need a lot more of a containment effort than other nations. This is the typical US method of doing things. Hit it with overwhelming force after other attempts have failed.

Maybe not the best way to go about it, but it can be made to work. If a vaccine comes along and cuts down on the disease level, so much the better. The public apparently isn't going to deliver the level of cooperation needed to drop the disease level, and the politicians are not willing (or probably able) to deliver enough coercive force to make them do so. It is also economically impractical to SIP until there is a vaccine. So IMHO a big containment force is the only way to go.