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I see one potential drawback to this (as opposed to a vaccine), and that is the impossibility to protect immunodeficient subjects: if you have an effective vacc
by carlob 7y ago
I see one potential drawback to this (as opposed to a vaccine), and that is the impossibility to protect immunodeficient subjects: if you have an effective vaccine you can be fairly certain that people with leukemia or full blown AIDS can be protected by herd immunity when surrounded by people who have been vaccinated. In this case it's not clear to me whether this would work. I have to say I'm no virologist, but I find the fact that this milder strain can still propagate on its own some kind of a double edged sword.
Maybe someone who knows more about this than I do could comment.
- jseliger 7y agoRight now it is also impossible to protect immunodeficient subjects, but herd immunity could help. I don't think the author ever says, "We should do this and only this in lieu of a vaccine." The argument is, "This can be done now, or soon, while a vaccine will take 12 - 18 months, if not longer."
- carlob 7y agoIt's not quite the same ethically: for all of this to work you should make this attenuated virus spread faster than the more deadly ones, so there is a positive act to be made which goes directly against the Hippocratic oath (do no harm). Immunodepressed subjects right now are protected by isolation and by the fact that right now a smallish percentage of the general population is an asymptomatic carrier, if we were to start spreading this actively those variables would change.