I’ve got to think they’ll develop a 2nd generation vaccine with fewer side effects especially if a new one is actually needed yearly (still not convinced we don’t just need the vaccine re-tuned for Delta rather than blindly shoving booster after booster of the original strain).

I get the flu shot every year and have zero side effects, it’s a different type of vaccine but I believe the Chinese have developed an inactivated virus vaccine for covid.

Part of it is just dose. Moderna had different Phase 3 trials than Pfizer and didnt hone in on dose as much, so its shot was probably overkill. But seeing how it now seems to have more longevity, maybe that overkill comes with a bonus staying power.

Im not sure it quite works that way but maybe it really is as simple as "less more often" = fewer side effects, "more less often" = more side effect, less often"

I tried to get a 3rd Pfizer shot yesterday, but neither CVS or my doctor would give it to me because I am not 65 or immunocompromised. I have some work travel coming up, and I thought that would be enough reason.

I could have easily lied and said that I am immunocompromised, but that is not my style. Maybe I need to keep looking to find someone who will give it to me.

That's what they said about chicken pox when I was a child.

Technology advances, fortunately.

There is no going back to normal if everyone gets covid: it is a deadly disease that has killed close to five millions of people.

This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.

I mean we went back to normal after Spanish Flu and Hong Kong flu didn't we? Spanish flu killed 50 million (edit). Hong Kong killed 1 - 4 million.

People will forget, it's in our nature to push on and survive.

> Technology advances, fortunately.

If you have the current technology you will get Covid. It's not if, it's when. Eventually we will have good vaccines (in a decade or two?) and maybe people won't get it. By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people.

> This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.

Covid is a serious thing and I'm sad for the people that died from it, before vaccines and the unvaccinated. If someone is carrying even a little extra weight I would plead with them to get the vaccine. Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.

> By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people.

Just to clarify that it's not the virus that will become more benign in an endemic situation - it's the hosts that will adapt to it, similar to how baby's/children's immune systems develop. At birth they are immunologically naive but then their immune systems are being primed by exposure to common pathogens like coronaviruses, influenza etc (which is why young children are ill all the time).

> Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.

I agree with your assessment but let's not forget that the IFR of Covid-19 scales exponentially with age. Which is another reason to get the vaccine.

Yea you have a point in our futile efforts to develop flu vaccines. If we ever have something that's actually deadly infect the world we're probably just screwed. The governments have used all the clout on Covid. Best just to get the vaccine and move on with life. Let's just be honest, we will probably die of Cancer or Heart Disease.

I'm convinced if Covid hit in the 50's we wouldn't have near the deaths. We're such a unhealthy society now. Best just to focus on health going forward.

Easy to say focus on health, hard to do it. We’ve been “focused on health” for decades and people just keep getting fatter.

If everyone gets a vaccine first and then covid we could be fine though, since the risk of dying is near zero for most people after having it

If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated, then that’s a really great way to cause millions of unneeded deaths. Just because you’re ok with that outcome don’t expect everyone else to be.

edit: that's not what they were suggesting. I misunderstood!

I didn’t read it that way at all.

He is repeating what experts have said, which is basically, because Covid is dormant in animals and domestic pets, and because you can spread it while vaccinated, essentially everyone will eventually get Covid. If you are vaccinated, your symptoms will be, on average, less severe.

It's probably more than everybody will get it, more like everybody will get it every couple years. Expect it to displace one of the colds, and become a common cold.

Will babies be exposed to it enough, to eventually make vaccination a thing of the past? Do we vaccinate for other common colds right now (OC43)? Or maybe the opposite conclusion, that as you age you should be vaccinated against the common colds.

> If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated

Never have I said that. I'm just saying it's time to get vaccinated and move on with life. Everyone will get Covid at some point.

Ok thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and agree with your point.