It was never possible for all nation vaccination program to succeed. Neither in term of logistic or in social or psychology. People are often irrational - so rational arguments for take vaccine cannot work for most. In terms of logistic there is no such structures which allow produce billion of doses and assure they disposal among billion people in period of 3-4 months. The way opinion, media works dishearten people - say here only few sportsmen decided to take shot - only few celebrities in public took shot - people are looking at them. Some important public figures - yes - but 50% thinks it was fake. Modern society works in way which makes impossible global vaccination. Situation is even worse in democracies - because in such countries any attempt to enforce vaccination may lead to serious political unrest. And I think - government proposing obligatory vaccination - it would be suicide for such government.

I wonder how New York City alone managed to fake up to 800 new Covid deaths per day for March, April and May 2020 and months of new cases hitting over 5000 per day??? However NYC conspirators are pikers compared to India who just in the past two months have managed to fake 4000 new Covid deaths per day!! Busy little bees, eh? ... and of course there is no correlation at all between rising cases and deaths in India because of lack of effective vaccine and the massive drop in US cases and the 60+% vaccine deployment... none! <sarc>

sundialcsvcs quote is classic All-or-nothing thinking. Around 10% of people who have received shots can still get the disease, that's what 90% effective means. (And yes, 10% of 100s of millions of people is many people.)

However, if we reach herd immunity that will be less a factor, help the immune compromised and others that can not be given the vaccine some protection.

Have you folks already discussed what is happening in India these days?
It's horrendous.
Today's news item: Amid India's COVID-19 surge, dozens of dead bodies found floating in Ganges River
Doctors and journalists say official numbers are under-representing the real situation between five- and twenty-fold.

Whoever can should give to COVAX. I wonder how though? There's no website with a friendly green "Donate" button...

Yes, I did touch on that in my answer to sundialsvc.
For those in the UK, the Disasters Emergency Committee are doing an appeal for India. Go to their website or you can send a cheque to DEC Coronavirus Emergency Appeal, PO Box 999, London EC3A 3AA.

Have you ever heard about heard immunity against flu? Of course not. No one. We are all sick of flu. That's the point. All the time. Heard immunity was created for the sake of this pandemia. Perhaps the first who used this was Sweden expert. He claimed that there is need for masks, for social distancing, for lockdowns, because this way society will reach fast heard immunity - most people of society got sick of virus - antibodies appear - and epidemia shoould cease in Sweden. The reality was completely different. After months of this try to reach herd immunity Sweden switched policy to that most countries apply - limitations, lockdowns, mass vaccination. True picture is that infections will be recurring - as infections of flue are recurring. It is not "herd immunity" - it is "natural selection" rather - most vulnerable people die first. Despite technology used vaccination is vulgar solution - vulgar method to deal with this pandemia. It should be clear cause it was devised by politicians hoping for kind blitz-krieg with virus. It was a hope for them - now they stick to it desperately. Every day media tell us how many people was vaccinated. Every possible measure of soft pressure is taken: discussion about "green passports". Absurdities is sky-reaching: reading articles one has impression those vaccinated needs protections from those non-vaccinated.

Flu is a special case because it mutates every year and these are really big mutations. Effectively we start from scratch with each year's new flu variant. But vaccines can cope with that. Every year, they sample the current flu viruses in circulation and make a new vaccine for them. That's why you have to have a booster shot every year.

Coronaviruses mutate too but a lot less than flu does. So, for example, current vaccines work perfectly against the original and the Kent variants but not so well against the South African (though they will stop you getting it badly). I don't know about the Indian variant though. That's why we may also need occasional boosters with these vaccines too.

The concept of herd immunity was originally developed for infections like measles and smallpox that almost never mutate. I first came across the phrase during the MMR controversy and that was a long time ago. It wasn't invented for covid.

Essentially not much to comment. Except one: no one knows at this point about the meaning of "works perfectly". I mean we need to wait at least 8 month to valuate how much effective are vaccines. For some people this so-called "immunity" will last longer - for others shorter. I mean we need to wait to the first surge of infections among people vaccinated. This sounds contrary to what people may find in media outlets - reading them there is impression protection will last forever. No. Not for ever. My private estimate is several months. For some. For others - longer. Perhaps even up to one year. But probably per year will appear strain making already created vaccines less effective. So scenario seems to be like in case of flue - vaccination per some period. But virus itself did not say its last word. For sure it keeps some surprise for us. Picture more is we need years and generations to deal with this. Probably little shorter if world would truly unite and take this seriously. More seriously than climate change.

Nope, the term community or herd immunity has been around for a long time.

The threshold for herd immunity is around 75 percent for the flu but maybe 50 percent get vaccinated at least in the US so it is never reached. But since it easily mutates we need a vaccine every year.

On the other hand most children get a polio vaccine and there have been zero cases in the US since 1979. In this case there is herd immunity. Although the number of cases worldwide is low it has been increasing in recent years.

As an example the smallpox plague killed 1/3 to 1/2 of the world population at the time to reach natural immunity. Essentially smallpox has been eradicated worldwide due to a vaccine. Vaccines are not new. They have been around since 1798.

It goes back a long way before that! Medieval doctors ground up the scabs that fell off people who had recovered from smallpox and kept the dust in bottles. It was called pox dust. During epidemics, they would scratch it into the skins of people to give them a mild case of the disease which would then protect them against the real thing.

The custom (called variolation) died out in Europe, probably because it was considered to be a medieval superstition, but they continued to do it in Turkey. An Englishwoman called Lady Montague brought it back from there and had her own children variolated.

The problem with variolation was that it did actually give you smallpox, and occasionally someone got it badly. So people usually only resorted to it when there was an epidemic. Edward Jenner's great invention was to use harmless cowpox instead.

@michaelk so they is no heard immunity because people has to get vaccine against flu every year. But there is much simpler method to fight flu: wearing masks. Exactly - masks are very effective against flu. However we do not like wear masks because of social behavior. Or we start to learn how to smile with eyes only.

Edit: I may add that comparisons this virus - this modified coronavirus - to viruses we know already - is misleading. The first we need justification that such comparisons are correct. As well this coronavirus can be complete new phenomenon - which may change what we know about. My picture of situation is that the coronaviruses are like rabbits in Australia. Coronaviruses damage natural balance. So we don't have natural protection against them. Even in terms of vaccines - which just support our own immunological system. We are defenseless. Because coronavirus is something artificial - made by us. Pandora box.

Edit: One can think about vaccines as message from community of bio-technologists: we created this damage but we can repair it.

Edit: What is at stake here are restrictions, deep strict control, criminalization of bio-technological research. Say weapon company can built bomb - but I can't build it in my home. So bio-technologists are now try to play a role of a savior. If they fail - governments would have to reconsider their stance about such kind of activity.

If only I could bet on people's responses here - sundial's conspiracy theory post about "Dr. you-know-who" and Bill Gates would have paid off big time...

Don't you guys ever get tired of the pro/anti vaxxer nonsense ?

There doesn't seem to be one central place to donate to covax.
gavi.org (Gavi) and gogiveone.org (WHO) seem to be the most direct ways to give (both organisations are part of the COVAX alliance).
There's plenty more options, but I'm leery of any 3rd party involved.

So:
https://gogiveone.org/
or
https://www.gavi.org/covax-facility

I ate the Polio sugar cube when I was in grade school. The kid that lived next door to me had polio and I remember him to this day.

You are so kind. I got a tetanus shot when I got a cut working as a diecaster in the 80's. I've been scratched and cuta couple times since then. And if I can see it, I can perform minor surgery on myself or take care of it as needed.

I try my best not to be around them and can't remember the last time I was around one. If I was though I'd be sure to wear my black mask. Just to scare it.

I had Hep B and D in '87 and my body fought it off. You can only get D if you currently have B and I have Immune Status for B. Last year I got vaccinated against Hep A and cured of Hep C by a 90 day course of Epclusa after having it since '96. Had I known what I know today I would have got treated in '96. But the virus was undetectable in my blood at 30 days into treatment and was at 6 months after treatment ended so am considered cured.

I had chickenpox when I was little and I'm not at all worried about getting shingles. I am pox.

I'm 64 years old, within my weight range for my height, my A1C is 5, my blood pressure stays around 120/80, resting heartbeat is now 83bpm and oxygen level 98. I'm not diabetic, no high blood pressure, no arthritis, no heart problems, no breathing problems, no back trouble or aliments you might hear others my age mention.

As previously stated, I've never had a flu or pneumonia shot in my life. I've lived in Public Housing the last 13 years with 50-60 other apartments in the building and 30-40 in the building on campus next door and residents co-mingle. I'm never sick, never had a cold in my life, haven't had the flu since '96 and by all accounts, according to my doctors, could live another 20 years.

Of which I cancelled all scheduled appointments with and stopped seeing not quite a year ago. The only exception being an appointment with one once per year to keep my prescription for ulcer medication refilled and that appointment is already scheduled. I don't go to the doctor unless I'm sick and there's no point in going if they can't do something for me.


Nothing seems to kill me, no matter how hard I try. Nothing is closing my eyes. Nothing can beat me down for your pain or delight. (Blow Up The Outside World - Soundgarden)