In terms of efficacy, availability, or distribution, part of me feels we’re being led by the nose at the behest of the market and 4th quarter earnings. It’s also no surprise they waited to sit on the news until immediately after Biden had clinched the election.
It's clear no one knows what's going on, and it just feels like more hot air. Something just doesn’t sit right.
I also don't see any escape from the reality that the only way we can cope long-term with viruses is implementing mandatory testing and a global public health database.
You really can't fake vaccine results, since millions of people are going to get dosed with them, if the infection rate among that group is higher than 3-5% it will be obvious that they don't work.
What doesn't feel right is the way that people are treating the vaccines as a cure for the pandemic. They're not. They're a cure for individuals. Mass innoculation of around 70-80% of a population is the only way to stop the spread of Covid in that area.
In New York City, vaccinating 70% of the population means tracking down and administering the vaccine to 6 million people, until six out of every eight people in the entire city have been vaccinated. To immunize the tri-state area, 15 million doses need to be administered. There are areas of the country where more than 30% of the population said they wouldn't take a covid vaccine because they won't trust it, which could very well mean that those areas will never become covid resistant.
It's also not clear whether the vaccines provide permanent immunity, so areas that have reached herd immunity may lose it over time. And to be clear, we are not getting rid of the coronavirus. Full stop. The idea of getting vaccines to 70% of the population of the global south is laughable. So even if certain countries achieve herd community, the disease will be on their doorstep if that immunity ever fades.
I think that the most likely scenario, the one that the media is gearing up for, is the situation where herd immunity is reached among certain groups of people, while the disease continues to kill immigrants, POC, prison population, and the minimum wage workers around the country. And some countries will just never be immunized. But once the majority of the 'middle class' or whatever the fuck gets vaccinated, we'll all declare a job well done and stop reporting covid deaths in poor neighborhoods. I mean, even moreso than we do already.
Holy shit.
Thanks for the analysis.
IMO this doesn't work because as soon as a white middle class decides they need an ICU unit all of them will be occupied. Remember that the people who die are also mostly those with tons of pre-existing conditions. These people will need healthcare regardless if they have COVID or not and there wont be enough capacity. So there are key parts to this whole interaction that prevents the scenario you are predicting.
All the overcrowed hospitals will have a material impact regardless if a news reporter allowed inside or not, and that wont change because Joe from management is now immune*(terms and conditions may apply) to COVID either.
The media may try to play a "mission accomplished" card 3-6 months from now, but I don't think it will succeed on its own. The vaccination campaign will have to be somewhat successful.
The entirety of modern politics is just the Bush mission accomplished scenario replaying itself over and over and over until the end of time.
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