all 4 comments

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I think that if you eradicate COVID-19 and its variants, you halt the rise of new variants.

The risk new variants that are more contagious, or that are more able to infect people who already have immunity, either by infection of vaccination.

So a very high vaccination rate is desirable. You can't get 100% because there are people with immune disorders and allergies that shouldn't be vaccinated. But Israel and Cali have shown that 60% isn't enough. Something in the 80-90% range would probably do it, but sooner is better than later, because around the peak of the disease, a person will carry about 10 billion virons (give or take an order of magnitude, depending on the severity of the infection), each with a possibility of mutating.

[–]StillLessons 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, and if we eradicate mosquitoes and cockroaches, we will halt all sorts of diseases borne by those organisms.

You've got this God complex going on which I will continue to call you out on. You are not going to eradicate this bug. How about influenza? That one's killed a lot more children than our current "bug-du-jour". How's your eradication campaign going there?

Eradication is a pipe-dream, and it is one of the most dangerous concepts you are selling when it comes to actually addressing a virus which - once it was clear it could not be contained in Wuhan - clearly needs to be controlled. By far the most powerful tool in the epidemiological arsenal for endemic viruses is the natural human immune system. Our species has been co-existing with bugs like this for thousands of years. Do many people die? Yes. But far far more people are going to die because of your bull-headed insistence that you are capable of controlling respiratory viruses more effectively than human evolution has been doing quite successfully over the past several thousand years.

Your delusions of control cause far more harm than good.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, and if we eradicate mosquitoes and cockroaches, we will halt all sorts of diseases borne by those organisms.

What diseases are born by cockroaches?

You've got this God complex going on which I will continue to call you out on.

Do I? How so?

You are not going to eradicate this bug.

The virus is a human virus now. If you vaccinate everyone, you will wipe it out. Just as we wiped out smallpox all those years ago.

How about influenza?

Such as corona-viruses?

You're not going to get all of them, as there are animal reservoirs from which they can jump. But the particularly nasty ones like COVID-19 and SARS and MERS have been economic to kill off completely.

That one's killed a lot more children than our current "bug-du-jour".

Sort of. Not really fair, since this is a subset of those. It's certainly the only one that's had a decent kill rate in the last nearly two years. Lockdowns and hand hygiene have absolutely done for other strains.

How's your eradication campaign going there?

We got SARS. The annual vaccine helps against the others.

Eradication is a pipe-dream

It is if we keep getting Russian influencers successfully encouraging us to kill ourselves by avoiding the vaccines. But you can eradicate a disease that doesn't have an animal reservoir by curing it in all the people.

and it is one of the most dangerous concepts you are selling when it comes to actually addressing a virus which - once it was clear it could not be contained in Wuhan - clearly needs to be controlled.

It's not dangerous to eradicate a disease that's killing people.

By far the most powerful tool in the epidemiological arsenal for endemic viruses is the natural human immune system.

Which is the basis of how vaccines work.

Our species has been co-existing with bugs like this for thousands of years.

We had an infant mortality rate of 50% for thousands of years.. Thank science, we do much better than then now.

But far far more people are going to die because of your bull-headed insistence that you are capable of controlling respiratory viruses more effectively than human evolution has been doing quite successfully over the past several thousand years.

We're already far far better than back before we had vaccines and antibiotics. Child mortality is now less than 5%, a more than 10-fold reduction globally.

Your delusions of control cause far more harm than good.

Look up some history. Medicine is good.

[–]dissidentrhetoric 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They are obsessed with vaccines because they get a bonus from the pharmaceutical companies when they reach high uptake.