Comment on Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?
seaweedsheep@literature.cafe 10 months ago
Your friend is an idiot. MRNA vaccines are not new. Scientists have been working on a vaccine since SARS, which is similar to COVID (aka SARS-CoV-2). One of the reasons why medication can take so long to reach the public is that it takes money, which likely come from grants, which take time and have limited amounts to go around. When the pandemic broke out, countries around the world threw money at these labs. Everything else pretty much stopped, so they didn’t have to wait for an understaffed and underfunded FDA to approve it.
Getting the vaccine is much better than slowly suffocating because the virus destroyed your lungs. Herd immunity only works when enough people have been vaccinated and clearly we haven’t reached that yet since people are still getting infected, reinfected and dying.
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s. So, why did it take until the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 for the first mRNA vaccine to be brought to market?
It sounds like the research isn’t new, but there hasn’t been any widely available vaccine since COVID. And given that mRNA vaccines aren’t the only option, it seems safer to stick with a more traditional vaccine.
Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
You’re correct on everything but the last part. Herd immunity doesn’t mean its erraticated. Just means the majority won’t get infected. Which is the case.
Legge@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Herd immunity means it’s effectively eradicated, meaning that enough people are protected from it that the virus cannot readily find new hosts and basically “dies out” in the areas in which herd immunity is reached. That’s why severely immunocompromised people, eho often cannot get vaccines or cannot mount a response even if they do get vaccines, do not get, e.g., polio. If only the majority didn’t get the virus, those who are susceptible (the minority) still would, but this doesn’t really happen (in places where herd immunity is reached). Other places around the world may still have the virus floating around, but after a while at the herd immunity level in a location/ country, it is effectively eradicated.
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 10 months ago
On top of what Legge said, herd immunity is for people who cannot get vaccines because of things like autoimmune diseases. who need to rely on the vast majority of people to be vaccinated to prevent the spread to them. It’s not for people who ‘just don’t like vaccines’ but have no medical reasons to avoid them
Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
I am well aware of that. It doesn’t disprove anything I’ve said and Legge is wrong. So good job?
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 10 months ago
If herd immunity has been established and maintained in a population for a sufficient time, the disease is inevitably eliminated – no more endemic transmissions occur. If elimination is achieved worldwide and the number of cases is permanently reduced to zero, then a disease can be declared eradicated. Eradication can thus be considered the final effect or end-result of public health initiatives to control the spread of infectious disease. In cases in which herd immunity is compromised, on the contrary, disease outbreaks among the unvaccinated population are likely to occur.