3 ms·

To be clear, the primary suggestion put forth by my original comment is: Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targ

To be clear, the primary suggestion put forth by my original comment is: Strategies for viral elimination should therefore be diversified across molecular targets and therapeutic modalities Put another way: vaccines are a powerful and useful tool that can help us mitigate the pandemic, but if used indiscriminately they may actually work against us, so we need to proceed with caution and also use other tools where possible.

maxerickson 5y ago
I don't know how you'd adjudicate it, but I'd bet quite a lot that indiscriminate use of a (tested, safe) vaccine is pretty much always going to be better than not using it. There's of course no reason to stop at indiscriminate use of it, we should employ whatever vaccine strategy seems to be best (in an empirical sense), and supplement with other measures, I'm going at the banality of the point.
rsfern 5y ago
I agree with the general point that diversifying our vaccine targets is important for robust immunity, but you are sort of coming close to advocating that we not use the particular somewhat limited vaccine tech we have at our disposal now. The best strategy against escape variants available to us right now is to reduce transmission rates (especially to immunocompromised people) as much as possible with high vaccination rates. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00202-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
- criticaltinker 5y ago
  The core point of the OP article - and the data coming out of Israel - is that mass vaccination alone is less effective than expected at preventing the surge of transmission and infection by variants of concern. The article you cited is in agreement with the literature I previously cited - as more people are infected the virus has more opportunity to mutate. > The best strategy against escape variants available to us right now is to reduce transmission rates ... as much as possible with high vaccination rates Your comment contradicts the mounting evidence we have available to us. Yes we need to use the vaccine tech we have at our disposal now - but in a highly targeted way, and supplemented by other viral elimination strategies that do not exert specific selective pressure on the virus.

maxerickson 5y ago

I don't know how you'd adjudicate it, but I'd bet quite a lot that indiscriminate use of a (tested, safe) vaccine is pretty much always going to be better than not using it. There's of course no reason to stop at indiscriminate use of it, we should employ whatever vaccine strategy seems to be best (in an empirical sense), and supplement with other measures, I'm going at the banality of the point.

rsfern 5y ago

I agree with the general point that diversifying our vaccine targets is important for robust immunity, but you are sort of coming close to advocating that we not use the particular somewhat limited vaccine tech we have at our disposal now. The best strategy against escape variants available to us right now is to reduce transmission rates (especially to immunocompromised people) as much as possible with high vaccination rates. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00202-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

criticaltinker 5y ago
The core point of the OP article - and the data coming out of Israel - is that mass vaccination alone is less effective than expected at preventing the surge of transmission and infection by variants of concern. The article you cited is in agreement with the literature I previously cited - as more people are infected the virus has more opportunity to mutate. > The best strategy against escape variants available to us right now is to reduce transmission rates ... as much as possible with high vaccination rates Your comment contradicts the mounting evidence we have available to us. Yes we need to use the vaccine tech we have at our disposal now - but in a highly targeted way, and supplemented by other viral elimination strategies that do not exert specific selective pressure on the virus.