For those suggesting that a COVID-19 vaccine can somehow be fast tracked, consider what happens if something goes wrong during deployment to the population.
The US has an active, very vocal anti-vax community. They've been growing and gaining ground for decades.
The first sign of trouble of any kind with a new COVID-19 vaccine would result in a backlash of biblical proportions. It could be so strong as to derail any attempt at a follower.
For this reason, I expect to see two things:
1. withering pressure from the current administration to cut corners on testing any new vaccine
2. a good chance for disastrous consequences resulting from (1)
I believe OPs point is about considering the longer term effects. If we prevent a million Covid-19 deaths with a rushed vaccine, but the vaccine kills even a few people and brings anti-vaxx into full swing and we get a nationwide diphtheria outbreak instead, are we really coming out ahead?
Then again, the longer we wait to deploy a vaccine, the more likely a novel strain will emerge and make itself endemic and seasonal like the flu, in need of yearly vaccinations and persistently high CFR.
> More than half the states in America have seen a decline over the past decade in the take-up rates among kindergarten children of vaccines against diseases such as measles, mumps, hepatitis B and polio, as unfounded anti-vaccination theories have spread.
> The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), which is the focus of much activity by the so-called anti-vaxxer movement, is especially vulnerable. Alarmingly, the study finds that more than half of the states – 26 in total – have vaccination rates that have fallen below the target of 95% which experts state is needed to provide maximum protection against the diseases.
Like serious side effects? If you want to vaccinate virtually the whole world and your vaccines turns out to have serious side effects in 1% of people because you rushed its development and didn't go through the regular extended long term tests it wouldn't be that good
Like what? What can a vaccine do that's worse than a pandemic?
Anti-vaxxers aren't rational people rationally concerned about real side-effects of vaccines, they are superstitious fools who think vaccines give kids autism. (There is NO scientific evidence for this idea whatsoever.)
Remember the Mayan Apocalypse? Remember how everybody stopped talking about it about fifteen minutes after midnight on Jan. 1st? That's what will happen to anti-vaxxer BS if^H^H when a real plague hits.
The original rotavirus vaccine caused intussusception. Vaccines are not magical risk free things, even if they don't cause autisim.
There's a reason we say "risk vs benefit". Current vaccines clearly fall under the reward part of that. A new vaccine? Who knows. That's why you have to test.
Right, I get it. I agree with everything you said. You are rational and correct.
However, none of that is to my point.
The OP said, "The US has an active, very vocal anti-vax community." and then said "The first sign of trouble of any kind with a new COVID-19 vaccine would result in a backlash of biblical proportions. It could be so strong as to derail any attempt at a follower."
That's what I am objecting to, I don't think that anti-vaxxer superstition would be increased by a bunch of scientists saying, "yeah, there's a side-effect" because that's not superstition, eh?
I'm finding it hard to articulate my point, which is weird because it seems to clear to me in my mind.
I don't think the masses would chuck science in the bin and huddle in fear, unvaccinated, waiting to see if they live or die from covad, just because there is some side-effect of the vaccine, unless it was somehow more horrible than, uh, huddling in fear, vaccinated but with some side-effects, waiting to see if they live or die from covad.
The US has an active, very vocal anti-vax community. They've been growing and gaining ground for decades.
The first sign of trouble of any kind with a new COVID-19 vaccine would result in a backlash of biblical proportions. It could be so strong as to derail any attempt at a follower.
For this reason, I expect to see two things:
1. withering pressure from the current administration to cut corners on testing any new vaccine
2. a good chance for disastrous consequences resulting from (1)