Heliodex π³οΈβππ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώπ³οΈββ§ on Nostr: The pandemic seems to have taught humanity heaps about safe development and ...
The pandemic seems to have taught humanity heaps about safe development and deployment of vaccines. Typical vaccine development and testing takes 5-10 years, which had to be done in a fraction of the time with COVID-19 specifically: in retrospect, we can see that countries that didn't invest/manage heavily enough in preventative responses like these caused their citizens deep suffering in terms of number of deaths and long covid cases, or less direct harm by preventable lockdowns causing economic problems. After vaccine rollout, there's still no "clear zone" yet, uptake could still fall, commonly in lower-income areas, and require more effort to reverse.
The two main separate goals of a vaccine ("prevent death to the patient" and "prevent infection to other patients") were conflated by elected officials in some countries, providing fuel for conspiracy theories to accelerate the vicious disinformation spiral, and clinical trials of the time were ill-fitted to combat this.
A more effective response could have been helped globally through education, but it would also be nice if the morale and motivation of the entire medical workforce hadn't been slashed by intensely personal attacks and death threats on hard-working doctors publicising vital research regarding the pandemic by high-profile extremists or conspiracy theorist figureheads. Yes, I'm talking about the attacks on the at-the-time US infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The case is slightly weaker for me as I'm not personally at high risk, though I interact with people immunosuppressed from chemotherapy (very high risk from covid/flu complications and fatalities) regularly; from this it's clear I should continue being pro-vax for both their and my benefit, as well as herd immunity for society and decrease load on health services.
Especially during peak covid, mandatory vaccinations policy would have been obvious from a safety/death and infection reduction standpoint, though could worsen or create staffing problems if exemptions and rollout is not properly accounted for, including for doctors and other care fields like hospice/care home workers. Rare side effects (at most ~50 cases per million) should be accounted for pragmatically, especially if they affect specific age groups.
Finally, nasal spray vaccines, being easier + faster + more effectiove + painless, I think are awesome. I suspect the only reasons they're not used more are high cost and currently rather low adoption.
tl;dr: Pro-vax. Call it Vax-skeptical if you want, skepticism drives research.
The two main separate goals of a vaccine ("prevent death to the patient" and "prevent infection to other patients") were conflated by elected officials in some countries, providing fuel for conspiracy theories to accelerate the vicious disinformation spiral, and clinical trials of the time were ill-fitted to combat this.
A more effective response could have been helped globally through education, but it would also be nice if the morale and motivation of the entire medical workforce hadn't been slashed by intensely personal attacks and death threats on hard-working doctors publicising vital research regarding the pandemic by high-profile extremists or conspiracy theorist figureheads. Yes, I'm talking about the attacks on the at-the-time US infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The case is slightly weaker for me as I'm not personally at high risk, though I interact with people immunosuppressed from chemotherapy (very high risk from covid/flu complications and fatalities) regularly; from this it's clear I should continue being pro-vax for both their and my benefit, as well as herd immunity for society and decrease load on health services.
Especially during peak covid, mandatory vaccinations policy would have been obvious from a safety/death and infection reduction standpoint, though could worsen or create staffing problems if exemptions and rollout is not properly accounted for, including for doctors and other care fields like hospice/care home workers. Rare side effects (at most ~50 cases per million) should be accounted for pragmatically, especially if they affect specific age groups.
Finally, nasal spray vaccines, being easier + faster + more effectiove + painless, I think are awesome. I suspect the only reasons they're not used more are high cost and currently rather low adoption.
tl;dr: Pro-vax. Call it Vax-skeptical if you want, skepticism drives research.