What makes you think that a vaccine will eradicate this disease? We have vaccines for many diseases that still exist today - influenza, varicella, etc. Even polio has proved tricky to globally eradicate, and vaccines for this have been in existence for over 50 years. The diseases that have been essentially eradicated, such as smallpox, is something that does not require vaccination on a continual/annual basis.
Covid has been mutating and spreading to other species. It is also believed that immunity is short lived, about 1 year. The virus will be endemic (if not already) in global wildlife and agricultural animal populations indefinitely. This will mean that you can't eradicate it and what yearly vaccinations will be required. This also presents the potential that new mutations will continue to emerge and that one or more will not be protected against by the vaccine.
These concerns don't even address that parts of the population will refuse to get the vaccine. Or that the vaccine does not completely protect against infection/transmission, as seen in it's effectiveness being measured as preventing severe symptoms (which is part of why you still need to wear a mask after vaccination).
Yea, it's kind of a pessimistic take, but is there strong evidence that this won't be just like the flu, where you need to vaccinate every year to keep up? Even with vaccinations and widespread coverage, it's really hard to totally eradicate a viral disease.
So far they believe all the know strains are still covered. Nobody knows if that will continue to be the case. The MRNA vaccines are targeting the spike protein, which is what gives it many of it's infectious properties. If it does mutate to change or eliminate that spike, we might get lucky and those strains won't be as serious, but nobody can predict the future.
Just an FYI, spike protein is used by virus as means of entering a healthy host's cell. Without it virus becomes like a c4 without detonation cap. More less harmless.
And it's annually, not just once and done for eradicated diseases, like smallpox. The vast majority of the population would have to take the vaccine every year. That's going to be a challenge to keep the population vaccinated.
When the average 36 year old American overestimates their chance of dying from covid by 1000x and any comment that goes against the “be scared” narrative.... when I get called “dangerous” for posting public data from state covid dashboards because my post shows this isn’t that bad, relatively speaking.... a lot of people are gonna have some serious long term mental trauma.
It seriously feels like people want to this to be the worst thing ever.
> As occurred in the spring, COVID-19 has become the leading cause of death in the United States (daily mortality rates for heart disease and cancer, which for decades have been the 2 leading causes of death, are approximately 1700 and 1600 deaths per day, respectively4).Dec 17, 2020 [0]
How do you argue with statistics? Its leading cause of death.
Depends on the methodologies used and the conclusions drawn from the numbers.
For example, the parent comment was claiming that the average 35 year old overestimates their chances of dying from covid. Your comment states that covid is the leading cause of death. I believe both statements are true. You can see some of this in a quote from the article you posted.
"In contrast, for individuals younger than age 45 years, other causes of death, such as drug overdoses, suicide, transport accidents, cancer, and homicide exceeded those from COVID-19."
And that's a third point that isn't necessarily in agreement to the others, but doesn't refute them either. It's hard to say what it would look like for that age group (<45), or any other, without the current restrictions.
Just to point it out in the age sub groups under 45 in the previously linked article, to become the leading cause of death in each one would require a 2x-15x increase in covid deaths. I'm not sure what that means for this conversation since my main point is that none of the numbers or arguments being thrown around in this comment chain directly relate to each other - there seem to be 2 or 3 separate arguments that are only tangentially related.
