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>This is a non-sterilizing vaccine. Unfortunately, it was being sold to the public like it was. >Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecti

>This is a non-sterilizing vaccine. Unfortunately, it was being sold to the public like it was. >Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people through vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease. Read the Director-General’s 12 October media briefing speech for more detail. >Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but – crucially – vaccines work without making us sick. Vaccinated people are protected from getting the disease in question and passing on the pathogen, breaking any chains of transmission. Visit our webpage on COVID-19 and vaccines for more detail. >To safely achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population. One of the aims with working towards herd immunity is to keep vulnerable groups who cannot get vaccinated (e.g. due to health conditions like allergic reactions to the vaccine) safe and protected from the disease. Read our Q&A on vaccines and immunization for more information. https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/herd-immunity-lockdowns-and-covid-19 https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/herd-immunity-lockd... To nit-pick, it is not the vaccine effect take 5 days to kick in but that the vaccine trained immune response takes 5 days to kick in. I would be interested in seeing how long it takes for natural trained immune response for someone who had Covid previously. Maybe the best strategy for herd immunity would be to get double vaccinated to prevent serious effects then contract Covid to gain superior antibody response.

phkahler 5y ago
>> Maybe the best strategy for herd immunity would be to get double vaccinated to prevent serious effects then contract Covid to gain superior antibody response. From reading about Covid, I thought the virus had a couple of genes that make it more deadly, one of which tends to suppress the immune system for example. Why not create another variant that is a full virus without those genes and use that as a live vaccine? Sure it might escape, but so what it's less lethal than the one out there right? Obviously this raises a bunch of ethical issues, but they are similar to the issues around forced vaccination.
- vigilantmav 5y ago
  What you are talking about is actually a type of vaccine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine My guess is that such a vaccine would take longer to develop, but I'm not sure about that. Wiki also lists the following drawbacks: In rare cases, particularly when there is inadequate vaccination of the population, natural mutations during viral replication, or interference by related viruses, can cause an attenuated virus to revert to its wild-type form or mutate to a new strain, potentially resulting in the new virus being infectious or pathogenic.[34][39] Often not recommended for immunocompromised patients due to the risk of potentially severe complications.[34][40][41] Live strains typically require advanced maintenance, such as refrigeration and fresh media, making transport to remote areas difficult and costly.[34][42]

phkahler 5y ago

>> Maybe the best strategy for herd immunity would be to get double vaccinated to prevent serious effects then contract Covid to gain superior antibody response. From reading about Covid, I thought the virus had a couple of genes that make it more deadly, one of which tends to suppress the immune system for example. Why not create another variant that is a full virus without those genes and use that as a live vaccine? Sure it might escape, but so what it's less lethal than the one out there right? Obviously this raises a bunch of ethical issues, but they are similar to the issues around forced vaccination.

vigilantmav 5y ago
What you are talking about is actually a type of vaccine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine My guess is that such a vaccine would take longer to develop, but I'm not sure about that. Wiki also lists the following drawbacks: In rare cases, particularly when there is inadequate vaccination of the population, natural mutations during viral replication, or interference by related viruses, can cause an attenuated virus to revert to its wild-type form or mutate to a new strain, potentially resulting in the new virus being infectious or pathogenic.[34][39] Often not recommended for immunocompromised patients due to the risk of potentially severe complications.[34][40][41] Live strains typically require advanced maintenance, such as refrigeration and fresh media, making transport to remote areas difficult and costly.[34][42]