Only if the mechanism of its action contributes to herd immunity. If it provides symptom abatement without lowering infection and transmission, then vaccination of those not at risk can prove counterproductive due to asymptomatic spread.
Death isn't the only negative outcome of covid. We're seeing a relatively high rate of long-term damage caused by low-level symptoms. If we can reduce those symptoms with a (perhaps annual) shot, then covid turns into the "just a cold" that we were all hoping it would be
The replies here seem to be ignoring the point I was making, so I guess I was unclear. I'm going to try once more, hopefully this helps:
The effects of the virus at play are irrelevant... long term, short term, sniffles, death. None of that matters to the topic of moral obligation. Only contagion matters, so let's take two opposing mechanistic scenarios:
1 - Reduced infectiousness (what we expect)
Person A getting the vaccine reduces the chance they will spread it to Person B if exposed and/or infected.
2 - Reduced symptoms (counterintuitive)
Person A getting the vaccine still gets infected and can infect Person B, but no longer has symptoms such as fever. In this situation, Person A actually becomes problematic to the un-vaccinated Person B, since it's not obvious to either individual that Person A is infectious.
In the first scenario, your vaccination potentially helps others. In the second, your vaccination potentially hurts others. The mechanism of action can change altruism into unintended harm. This is why the mechanism of vaccination is so important from social perspective.
> effects of the virus at play are irrelevant... only contagion matters
No, I'm sorry, but hospital ICUs near me are 90+% full again and we're returning to a strict lockdown. Given a hypothetical vaccine which reduces symptoms but transmission, the vaccine still reduces the hospitalization rate, so your un-vaccinated person B will have a better chance at treatment. Your situation #2 presumes that people with mild symptoms will be inclined to stay home -- in my experience, this is not the case.
Huh, that's nonsense. Every vaccination also carries risks, so there can be no moral obligation if the risks outweigh the benefits.
That said, I also disagree with the moral obligation. At the very least, there are also other scenarios to consider. For example if only a small group is at risk and can't be vaccinated (too risky), that small group could be isolated or choose to self isolate. Afaik it already happens with chemotherapy patients who are being isolated. There is no obligation for the rest of the world to disinfect everything and walk around in hazmat suits so that chemotherapy patients can walk freely in the outer world.
Here's the problem: we don't have enough information on long term damage. It could be that there are none, it could be that we'll see them in decades (like shingles).
We do not know. Since we do not know, we need to play it safe. If we are wrong, nothing will happen. If we are right, we have avoided long term damage.
I'm not saying COVID doesn't have long-term impacts in certain portions of the population, but this sentence is pretty important: "However, the findings are observational, and the authors cannot rule out the possibility that rates of diagnoses in general might have decreased indirectly because of the pandemic, particularly in people not admitted to hospital with covid-19."
It's really hard to draw meaningful conclusions when COVID has completely changed all kinds of factors in healthcare ranging from people being stuck at home and eating poorly to opting not to visit the doctor because of overburdened hospitals and fear of infection. I'd like to see some studies a year from now before forming a strong opinion.
> Comparison groups are also important to understand the scale of a problem. To put it bluntly: it’s not very informative to describe people as COVID “long-haulers” if, sixty days after being diagnosed with an illness that is sweeping the world in a devastating pandemic, they report anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, headache etc., without a comparison group!
My anecdotes are my Bayesian truth, and they include neighbors and coworkers with longterm anosmia that I've never had friends experience before COVID. The article you mentioned didn't even address this rather well known symptom... why not? It would seem to be rather measurable and comparable vs earlier baselines.
Herd immunity exists when enough people are incapable of re-transmitting a disease that the R number is below 1, even when we're back to a normal way of living.
It may be that the vaccines will be incapable of giving us herd immunity, but they may allow us to keep the R number below 1 with much less extreme social distancing and lockdown procedures.
Without the vaccines, the only way to get rid of this pandemic is through severe economy-damaging lockdowns and liberty-encroaching contact tracing and quarantining. If we can achieve the same thing with vaccines plus just having to wear a mask when near other people, then I would say that vaccination would still be a moral obligation, even though we haven't achieved herd immunity.
> Immediately end all lockdowns, mask mandates and capacity restrictions. All those aged 70 and above will have the option to stay in quarantine
Aside from the stupidity of the first half, is the last sentence to be taken to mean that everyone under 70 will be dragged forcibly out of their homes and exposed involuntarily? If not, how else are we to understand that only a narrow group will have the “option” of “quarantine”?
> Pass legislation to make Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin available over the counter like they are in many foreign countries.
That’s stupid. Why would we make things worse by implicitly endorsing ineffective treatments? We’ve actually come a long way in effective medical interventions for COVID; making those more readily available (though OTC isn’t the right route, even there) makes sense.
> But no, we get ignore all the proof and hide in your homes until everyone can be vaccinated.
Almost nowhere has a policy that could even hyperbolicly be described by any sane person as “hide in your homes”, most places are gradually (some radically, even recklessly) reopening (and many adopting the first part of your first recommendation.) Even the many of the most restrictive places have generally reopened or are on short timetable to, despite retaining mask mandates and distancing/capacity restrictions for many activities.
You mean like India? Check out those COVID numbers and let me know what you find ;)
Indeed it is a virus, and they are used for Malaria. If using the combination of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and Azythromicin early in disease progression actually works then... who cares? I mean really. It could work on placebo for all I care. People are dying, you think they will refuse a proven treatment that happens to be a anti-malarial versus an anti-viral?
Regarding people being deficient in Vitamin D, that's uh... literally everyone. I think the only people with normal levels are native tribes that still live outdoors. Check out any study of vitamin D in chronically ill people and see how many have normal levels. These are the same people most susceptible to dying from COVID. Isn't being Vitamin D deficient the most indicative metric of COVID morbidity?
No, not at all. Lockdowns, quarantining and other human rights violations don't help us get rid of the pandemic, they prolong it. To end the pandemic faster, more people need to get exposed to the virus.
Please take this rhetoric elsewhere. No human rights are being violated. We are trying to protect people and buying time until all can be immunized (or, if vaccines didn't exist, allowing health care facilities to handle the load).
We KNOW containment measures work (Ebola, SARS).
If you expose more people to a virus, you risk making the pandemic much worse. Or deadly. Viruses mutate. Every new person exposed is a potential laboratory.
You can contract covid, have it mutate and also spread it to others even if you’ve been vaccinated. There’s supposedly less of a chance to do this if you’re vaccinated but with for profit corporations funding most of the science it should all be taken with a grain of salt.
Only if the mechanism of its action contributes to herd immunity. If it provides symptom abatement without lowering infection and transmission, then vaccination of those not at risk can prove counterproductive due to asymptomatic spread.