Quote:
Originally Posted by JD001
I'm all for it as we need to get the economy back on track with people out and about doing stuff..
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Therein lies the problem. A vaccine with relatively low effectiveness against a highly transmissible virus might actually make things worse. This is especially worrisome in the U.K. where a more contagious SARS-CoV-2 mutation is becoming widespread.
The vaccine has been approved at the intended 2x standard dose regimen, that showed only 62% effectiveness in the clinical trial. While this ostensibly passes the goal of at least 50% effectiveness, think about how this might play out.
A person getting this vaccine has a 38% chance of not being protected. If 20 million people are vaccinated with the AstraZeneca product, that means close to 8 million of them could become infected with SARS-CoV-2. If those 20 million vaccinated people are out and about thinking they're 'immune' and 8 million of them fall ill - which seems likely, given the increased transmissibility of the new mutation - that could result in more ill people, more people in hospitals, and more deaths.
A vaccine that only provides 62% effectiveness will also not advance the goal of achieving 'herd immunity'. To break the cycle of infection, around 90% of people need to be immune, to no longer be capable of transmitting infection (again, especially with the more contagious new mutation). 62% protection won't provide that.
This vaccine could be beneficial to the community at large only if people would keep practicing other containment measures - wearing masks, observing social distancing, and continuing with closures of places where people gather indoors unmasked (such as restaurants, pubs, etc.). If that's what will be done in the U.K., then yes, even a modestly effective vaccine like this one will be helpful.
But that's the danger. Many people won't do that, and the government may feel under pressure to 'open things up for the sake of the economy'. It's a false pretense that could backfire. If a large number of people receive the AstraZeneca vaccine and then throw away their masks and gather in restaurants and pubs, the 'boost' to the economy will be very short term. If millions more become ill, people won't be well enough to be out and about, and the costs to the U.K. of caring for all of them could end up being higher than continuing with containment measures.
It's not a choice of 'lives' or 'money' (though a lot of politicians seem to think that). Experiences in other countries around the world have shown that economies thrive not only when people feel safe, but actually
are safe enough to go out and spend money.
A number of countries have successfully contained the SARS-CoV-2 virus without a vaccine - New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, and even China. They did it the same way the 1918 Spanish influenza was ultimately controlled - with a proper lockdown for a long enough time that the cycle of transmission was broken. Then life was able to start returning to some semblance of (the new) 'normal', but only
after the cycle of infection was stopped.
Sometimes, the urge to 'do something' and thinking that 'anything is better than nothing' only makes things worse.