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> Although this virus has killed many, the risk factor for it is nowhere near high enough to warrant an emergency vaccine. There are trials underway for inhaled

> Although this virus has killed many, the risk factor for it is nowhere near high enough to warrant an emergency vaccine. There are trials underway for inhaled steroids that look very promising, and there's a good chance this virus will burn out in our population long before a truly safe vaccine comes to market. I think your perception of the numbers are a little off here. In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/) That was most from a few hot spots like london. (less than 10% of the population.) We were very close to overwhelming hospitals. when a hospital system is overwhelmed you get a very large spike in deaths, because stuff that's treatable isn't treated without lockdown, those deaths would have grown exponentially. Something like 200-400k preventable deaths. so, if we want to get out of lockdown, we need to have something to reduce the spread of the virus. One way is heard immunity (thats what the US is doing, and its not going very well) another is vaccine. Now, given the UK example, if the vaccine causes 10 deaths, and 1000 severe reactions(ie hospitalised) thats still better than the 200k deaths and close to a million cases with complications Deaths arn't the whole picture, its the people that recover with life altering injuries as well.

JJzD 6y ago
The WHO says there is only one worse thing than a bad pandemic, and that's a bad vaccine. Because not everybody is exposed to the pandemic, but in principle everyone is exposed to the vaccine. That doesn't counter your point, but we'll need up to phase 3, to have enough coverage to make sure your statistics hold. But indeed, the risk seems to be balanced against 5 years waiting for any long term symptoms to show.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  When did the WHO say that? I’m not disagreeing, just have not seen them talk about it like this.
- pixelbash 6y ago
  It seems like there's a real chance everyone will be exposed to this pandemic sooner or later. My take is calculate the risks and act accordingly. Arguing moral priors first and statistics second is best reserved for when people aren't already dying in droves.
partyboat1586 6y ago
In the link: >COVID-19 associated UK deaths >Deaths of people who have had a positive test result These are people who died who tested positive for the the virus not people who died as a result of having the virus. Not very useful numbers since the virus spreads in hospitals.
- thu2111 6y ago
  It's actually even more useless than that. The wording has to be taken entirely literally: in the last few days it was discovered that PHE was reporting a COVID death as anyone who ever tested positive and who has subsequently died. Not of COVID. Not even with COVID. Someone who has ever had it, and then died any time later for any reason at all. Under this definition COVID-19 is a terminal disease from which nobody ever recovers. If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. Matt Hancock was apparently furious when he found out, now a review of PHE has been triggered as they've been serving the UK with bogus stats for months. Notethe coviddata site says PHE wasn't even deduplicating tests until 2nd July. So "case count" before then was also misleading. 30,000 positive cases vanished overnight and that assumes they did the deduplication correctly, but the government is so bad at data handling that at this point it's unclear if any stats can be trusted. This stuff is really important and it's clear a lot of people on HN are in denial about it, because each time it gets brought up a torrent of downvotes follows. The COVID stats are wrong. They're not even just useless, they're actively misleading. They lead to beliefs like this one: In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid which is not true and has never been true. It's a belief based on assuming the stats are measuring what actually matters/what people want to know. In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    There are two sets of stats here, one from Public health england (PHE) and one from the Office for National Statistics(ONS). I am referencing the ONS when I say 1100 people a day, why? because the ONS stats can be compared to many years previous. PHE ones are collected by some consultancy company and are trash. The average daily death rate is found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus. The stats are measuring how many deaths are occurring above the normal average death rate for that period. _something_ caused an extra 1100 deaths a day. Sure you can say covid is a _very_ mild virus. It might be for some, but out of my friends that have had it (as in tested positive) 1 desaturated to 88% every night. 1 had a fever for 14 days(as in bedbound) 3 had a week long fever, 5 were asymptomatic 3 had epic shits for a weeks. All of these people are < 40. of the people that were > 40 and tested positive, all 3 died. However that's because at the time they were only testing inpatients. So, with the greatest of respect, you can take your "mild virus" and "its really not 1100 extra deaths a day" and shove it up your arse.
hjnilsson 6y ago
> Now, given the UK example, if the vaccine causes 10 deaths, and 1000 severe reactions(ie hospitalised) thats still better than the 200k deaths and close to a million cases with complications The anti vaccination optics, of a vaccine killing people, would be so bad the resulting vaccination resistance could lead to millions of deaths. Yes, statistics maybe say that it would be a good deal now. But if you assume it fuels the antivac fire and decreases measles vaccination by 10% for the next 10 years, then we are looking at a death toll 10-100 times larger than COVID in the future, from that disease alone.
- fwip 6y ago
  SARS-COV-2 has approximately 5 times the fatality rate as the measles. Measles also only infects a person once. Preliminary data is pointing toward covid immunity lasting for only a few months.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Do you have a source for that? All I've seen is evidence that antibodies disappear after a while in many subjects but that is not at all the same thing.
    - fwip 6y ago
      That's a good point. I've done some more reading, prompted by your comment, and it looks like Other coronaviruses typically do have reinfection about a year after first infection: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20086439v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20086439v... - with antibody reduction occurring after about six months. I know there have been a few people who appeared to clear the virus but subsequently tested positive again - I don't know enough about the details here. Vox article with more links: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic... I hope that reinfection with this virus is less likely, but I don't think we yet have any data to suggest that it is much different than existing coronaviruses.
  - 6y ago
pacaro 6y ago
FWIW Greater London is approx 13% of the UK population, and the London metropolitan area is approx 21%. Intentional under and over counting of the size of London is pretty common depending on the interlocutor's agenda
balladeer 6y ago
> One way is heard immunity Without a vaccine - wouldn't herd immunity just be letting the virus spread and then let Darwin take over, more or less?
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  This is precisely what it is. It was the approach taken initially by the UK, and it is the one currently being taken by sweden.

JJzD 6y ago

The WHO says there is only one worse thing than a bad pandemic, and that's a bad vaccine. Because not everybody is exposed to the pandemic, but in principle everyone is exposed to the vaccine. That doesn't counter your point, but we'll need up to phase 3, to have enough coverage to make sure your statistics hold. But indeed, the risk seems to be balanced against 5 years waiting for any long term symptoms to show.

IgorPartola 6y ago
When did the WHO say that? I’m not disagreeing, just have not seen them talk about it like this.
pixelbash 6y ago
It seems like there's a real chance everyone will be exposed to this pandemic sooner or later. My take is calculate the risks and act accordingly. Arguing moral priors first and statistics second is best reserved for when people aren't already dying in droves.

partyboat1586 6y ago

In the link: >COVID-19 associated UK deaths >Deaths of people who have had a positive test result These are people who died who tested positive for the the virus not people who died as a result of having the virus. Not very useful numbers since the virus spreads in hospitals.

thu2111 6y ago
It's actually even more useless than that. The wording has to be taken entirely literally: in the last few days it was discovered that PHE was reporting a COVID death as anyone who ever tested positive and who has subsequently died. Not of COVID. Not even with COVID. Someone who has ever had it, and then died any time later for any reason at all. Under this definition COVID-19 is a terminal disease from which nobody ever recovers. If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. Matt Hancock was apparently furious when he found out, now a review of PHE has been triggered as they've been serving the UK with bogus stats for months. Notethe coviddata site says PHE wasn't even deduplicating tests until 2nd July. So "case count" before then was also misleading. 30,000 positive cases vanished overnight and that assumes they did the deduplication correctly, but the government is so bad at data handling that at this point it's unclear if any stats can be trusted. This stuff is really important and it's clear a lot of people on HN are in denial about it, because each time it gets brought up a torrent of downvotes follows. The COVID stats are wrong. They're not even just useless, they're actively misleading. They lead to beliefs like this one: In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid which is not true and has never been true. It's a belief based on assuming the stats are measuring what actually matters/what people want to know. In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  There are two sets of stats here, one from Public health england (PHE) and one from the Office for National Statistics(ONS). I am referencing the ONS when I say 1100 people a day, why? because the ONS stats can be compared to many years previous. PHE ones are collected by some consultancy company and are trash. The average daily death rate is found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus. The stats are measuring how many deaths are occurring above the normal average death rate for that period. _something_ caused an extra 1100 deaths a day. Sure you can say covid is a _very_ mild virus. It might be for some, but out of my friends that have had it (as in tested positive) 1 desaturated to 88% every night. 1 had a fever for 14 days(as in bedbound) 3 had a week long fever, 5 were asymptomatic 3 had epic shits for a weeks. All of these people are < 40. of the people that were > 40 and tested positive, all 3 died. However that's because at the time they were only testing inpatients. So, with the greatest of respect, you can take your "mild virus" and "its really not 1100 extra deaths a day" and shove it up your arse.

hjnilsson 6y ago

> Now, given the UK example, if the vaccine causes 10 deaths, and 1000 severe reactions(ie hospitalised) thats still better than the 200k deaths and close to a million cases with complications The anti vaccination optics, of a vaccine killing people, would be so bad the resulting vaccination resistance could lead to millions of deaths. Yes, statistics maybe say that it would be a good deal now. But if you assume it fuels the antivac fire and decreases measles vaccination by 10% for the next 10 years, then we are looking at a death toll 10-100 times larger than COVID in the future, from that disease alone.

fwip 6y ago
SARS-COV-2 has approximately 5 times the fatality rate as the measles. Measles also only infects a person once. Preliminary data is pointing toward covid immunity lasting for only a few months.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Do you have a source for that? All I've seen is evidence that antibodies disappear after a while in many subjects but that is not at all the same thing.
  - fwip 6y ago
    That's a good point. I've done some more reading, prompted by your comment, and it looks like Other coronaviruses typically do have reinfection about a year after first infection: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20086439v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.11.20086439v... - with antibody reduction occurring after about six months. I know there have been a few people who appeared to clear the virus but subsequently tested positive again - I don't know enough about the details here. Vox article with more links: https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twice-reinfection-antibody-herd-immunity https://www.vox.com/2020/7/12/21321653/getting-covid-19-twic... I hope that reinfection with this virus is less likely, but I don't think we yet have any data to suggest that it is much different than existing coronaviruses.
- 6y ago

pacaro 6y ago

FWIW Greater London is approx 13% of the UK population, and the London metropolitan area is approx 21%. Intentional under and over counting of the size of London is pretty common depending on the interlocutor's agenda

balladeer 6y ago

> One way is heard immunity Without a vaccine - wouldn't herd immunity just be letting the virus spread and then let Darwin take over, more or less?

KaiserPro 6y ago
This is precisely what it is. It was the approach taken initially by the UK, and it is the one currently being taken by sweden.