Covid-19 Politics

[broncofan]

Yes, a large factor in Operation Warp Speeds' decision to forgo a whole killed virus vaccine was the fear that the possible side effects would undermine the public's confidence in vaccines in general in a world already full of 'anti vaccers'.

Before watching all of this unfold I had never followed the clinical trial process and what wasn't intuitive to me I slowly adjusted to because I heard enough scientists explain the process. What wasn't intuitive is that we would have an effective and safe vaccine at the very beginning of a disease that ended up killing more than 300,000 people here in ten months, but that it would take exactly that long to figure out whether it was safe and effective.

Even if we don't take into account the possibility that the public would use a very bad outcome from a poorly tested vaccine to refuse vaccination ever again, I wonder what the expected average outcome would be of vaccinating people after a couple of months with only the quickest of studies to assess tolerability and some optimization of doses while measuring antibody titers, t cell response, trying to guess correlates of immunity, and picking the best option. Then we vaccinate the highest risk people gradually, while telling them not to change their behavior based on the expectation they have immunity and in parallel run the full sequence of clinical trials because some control is needed to actually assess the data although there would be safety and efficacy monitoring of people who are vaccinated. If the vaccine was unsafe, how many people would be impacted by the time they figure it out?

I suppose from the standpoint of the Chinese, they are probably able to force people to get vaccinated and so public confidence in vaccines matters a bit less (I am not trying to take a gratuitous shot at their government but I don't think they would have an issue with forcing people to get vaccinated). Maybe they thought they could run parallel trials while vaccinating at risk individuals that they think would produce a better average outcome.

[Stavros]

The vaccine has become a Seventh Cavalry in the siege. I read today that with regard to the 'Flu, there are currently 'four flavours' and that immunologists who specalize in 'flu have learned how to identify them and modify the vaccine, so the 'flu jab I get every year (I had my last one in early November, free of charge, of course) is not precisely the same vaccine as the one I had in 2019.

On one level we should not underestimate the science, which may not be in control of Covid-19 + variants, but has not lost control either. What we have seen in the UK is a loss of control by Government. The new strain of Covid-19 that has led to this panic and the end of free movement outside the UK was first identified in September, and we don't know if relaxations on social mixing encouraged it to spread -but it has already reached Australia from the UK and I think just from two people entering the country.

This re-emphasizes how wickedly clever this virus is in attaching itself to our organs, and the need to either maintain, increase, or in the case of some countries (hint: the US) introduce social restrictions with an inevitable economic effect. Indeed, the ban on travel into Europe from the UK ought to have been part of the UK Government's stategy in March, but there was no strategy, no national co-ordination, just a few wings and some prayers. Prayers may soothe the soul, they don't end pandemics.

2021, from the UK's perspective, looks as bleak as 2020. I doubt we will see an end to the persistence of this virus for most the year, maybe late Summer if you want a positive view. Brexit complicates everything, which is why a sense of gloom is descending on the country even Boris Johnson won't be able to raise, assuming he stays in office long enough to try it.

Science can only do so much, the rest is up to us.

[sukumvit boy]

Flu viruses:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/types.htm#:~:text=There%20are%20four%20types%20of, global%20epidemics%20of%20flu%20disease.
Corona viruses:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html

[broncofan]

Nine months into a pandemic in which 330,000+ people have died in the U.S. we still have people complaining about the tyranny of public health guidelines. What is the end game they asked one month into the pandemic when we were already a month into the greatest collective effort to develop a life-saving vaccine the world has ever seen.

The end game was to develop herd immunity by vaccine instead of through mass sickness and death. What we did was operate in limbo where the economy could not thrive but people would still get sick and die. By ignoring what has happened in the rest of the world some people continue to insist that the burdens imposed by mask wearing and distancing have been too great. What is their model of excellence? Sweden? Belgium? What country has decided to take the "stoic" approach and not hesitated when it became obvious they were condemning their citizens to the worst of both worlds?

There can only be so much delusional wish fulfillment until all of the lies are laid bare. It is the most vulnerable who suffer the consequences. Keep the elderly safe while everyone else goes about life as normal? Has that worked anywhere? Don't elderly people depend on younger people for healthcare and assisted living? Isn't their risk tied to how much the virus is spreading?

Now we have all of the vaccines that can help us deal with this virus and the federal government has already done a poor job with logistics. Could it be more obvious that what we heard from the beginning was laziness and incompetence hiding behind a wall of ignorance?

[Stavros]

The sad fact of the matter is that science is bullshit as far as a substantial number of Americans are concerned, the ones who really don't care if you live or die. The majority of Americans do care, and the majority probably do behave responsibly, but enough do not, and tragically for you they are in positions of authority. In a country where so so much power is devolved to the States, maybe Kristi Noem and Ron DeSantis should be charged with being accessories to murder, though they won't be. As for the President, the slogan that sums up his Presidency should probably be Drop Dead, America, My Golf is More Important Than You Lives.

Trump has now made more money playing golf in less than four years than Tiger Woods has in 23. If I were Prime Minister I would ban all travel to and from the US for an indefinite period. I feel sorry for decent Americans, but there are too many of you on the wrong side of science who bring shame and disrespect to the country. And for the record, we have plenty of morons in the UK, and not just those choosing to ski in Switzerland, or have maskless beach parties in Sydney. It is simple really, they don't care. Thanks to these people, the impact of the vaccine will take much longer to sideline a viral infection which may now become endemic for years, even if the volume of cases declines so that it no longer becomes a public health emergency. We have a long way to go. And miles and mles and miles to go before we can sleep.

[broncofan]

The majority of Americans do care, and the majority probably do behave responsibly, but enough do not, and tragically for you they are in positions of authority.

I think this is the key point. I'm sure our scientific literacy is not great but one can say that about many places that have been more responsible than we have. The average person will not know very much about disease dynamics or viral spread and won't even be motivated to learn about it during a pandemic. People in positions of authority have a responsibility to learn as the public depends on them to provide responsible advice.

There was always going to be some bullshit circulating among the fringes, and there is in most countries, but Republicans have made it much more mainstream than it would have been. Just as viral spread is exponential, lies told about the virus have effects that are magnified. And the lying and obfuscation has been very pervasive so one can't really deny our incredibly poor outcome is tied to it.

[broncofan]

Thanks to these people, the impact of the vaccine will take much longer to sideline a viral infection which may now become endemic for years.

Without saying too much I think there are good reasons to think it will be endemic for a while. One is that we don't know how durable protection is from the vaccines. The second point is that it's a highly transmissible virus and we don't know what the compliance with vaccination will be in many countries. The good news is that the vaccines are much more effective than a lot of people thought they would be.

The flu vaccine, for instance, is only about 50% effective at preventing disease in many years. As you say above, one of the reasons is that the flu mutates very quickly and scientists are presented with a constantly moving target as they reformulate the vaccine each season. The most recent mutation of sars-cov-2 is not the first documented mutation of it but I think the first one that changed transmissibility (though not virulence) a lot. Still most of the scientists think the approved vaccines will be effective against it and the amount of tweaking of the vaccines to accommodate further mutation will not be as challenging as with the flu. We'll see. Clearly leaders in every country should realize that time is of the essence and the faster they mobilize their vaccine efforts the greater service they provide to their citizens.

[Stavros]

Without saying too much I think there are good reasons to think it will be endemic for a while. One is that we don't know how durable protection is from the vaccines. The second point is that it's a highly transmissible virus and we don't know what the compliance with vaccination will be in many countries. The good news is that the vaccines are much more effective than a lot of people thought they would be.

I agree with you, and I think we can agree that it has been a colossal failure of politics, rather than science, and that the opportunity to show how effective politics can be was missed, because the man in charge was only interested in himself, not the country.

The New York Times article linked below (not behind a paywall) documents the in-fighting and deluded decision-making in the White House, where it appears Mark Meadows was as destructive as Trump, but I like this comment from one of the readers, from Portlan, Oregon:

"Michael Kennedy
Portland, Oregon9h ago

Times Pick
He never figured it out. His lack of historical knowledge was his end. Americans rally behind their president in a crisis. If he'd come on national television, called all Americans to work together against this common enemy, he would have won the election in a landslide. Americans want a strong leader during a crisis. Americans are willing to set aside their differences to work together and overcome problems that are common to everyone. Instead, he took a cowards stance. He dug in, and presumed - erroneously - that it was something to do with only him. Trump manufactured his own demise, and in the midst of his hubris, millions became ill, and tens of thousands of Americans died. Donald Trump couldn't see beyond his own quest for superficial popularity. History will not be kind."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/u...mentsContainer

[broncofan]

I think that person's post is right. Trump had a better chance to do it than a Democratic leader would have because the latter would have had Republicans in opposition. Republican congressmen could have done nearly as much damage speaking over a Democratic President as Trump did as President.

But with Trump as President, if he had decided to pull the country together and had taken the lead of the vast majority of epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and probably gotten him a second term.

[broncofan]

The purpose of operation warp speed was not only to subsidize the development of vaccines but to manufacture doses at risk so that they were available by the time clinical trial results came in. They should have also worked out any and all logistical issues about their delivery in advance.

Trump had more than 9 months to work through these logistical hurdles. His supporters can pretend that anyone would make the mistakes he made but they simply wouldn't have. Most competent leaders would have had a plan in place in the event the vaccine trials were successful. The purpose of operation warp speed was to anticipate success at every stage so that each successive stage would proceed without delay.

I can't wait for him to be gone. We'll see what Biden is able to do even without the cooperation of about 45% of the country.