The World After Coronavirus

[rjh01]

Why would you need to shut the country down with a vaccine available? Your biggest problem is the antivax refuseniks and there are ways to deal with that. It shouldn't just be a case of sticking needles into people and saying job done, it's adding the vaccine to the already-deployed methods that will lick it.

You are assuming here that an effective vaccine will be available next year. This is by no means guaranteed. The vaccines under development now may not work or they all may have serious side effects. In fact, there is currently no evidence that any of them will actually prevent a person from getting the virus.

 

[Rolfe]

You are assuming here that an effective vaccine will be available next year. This is by no means guaranteed. The vaccines under development now may not work or they all may have serious side effects. In fact, there is currently no evidence that any of them will actually prevent a person from getting the virus.

I'm not assuming anything, but I think it's a good bet. I think it's extraordinarily unlikely, given the present state of vaccine technology and the enormous amount of effort being put into this by over a hundred groups utilising pretty much every possible means of vaccine production known to science, that none of them will be successful.

Next year? As I say I think there's a good chance. Within five years? Probably a racing certainty. Never? Not going to happen.

 

[RedStapler]

Funny you should say that; one unusual symptom with me was that the polyneuropathy led to my losing a good deal of my hearing over the space of less than a month back in Jan/Feb last year, almost nothing above c. 2Khz anymore (can't hear cymbals *at all* for example).

I'm a lifelong audio-nut, one of the simplest pleasures I took from life, and something that could always have been there to kick back to while effectively house-bound was gone. I've often half-jokingly said it seems like a punishment from God.

Well then, down on your knees and start praying the **** out of it.

 

[Agatha]

I've moved the derail into Vitamin C to another thread. In future please report any such derails as the mod team does not (indeed cannot) undertake to read every post submitted to the forum.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha

 

[Brainster]

Meanwhile, 22% of college students are not enrolling this semester:

As the coronavirus pandemic pushes more and more universities to switch to remote learning — at least to start — 22% of college students across all four years are planning not to enroll this fall, according to a new College Reaction/Axios poll.

Why it matters: Scores of colleges were already approaching a financial cliff before the pandemic began. Steep drops in enrollment could push some over the edge.

 

[Modified]

One third will not refuse to take it. I consider anyone who says unreservedly right now that they would take a coronavirus vaccine to be dangerously complacent and a lot of people would answer in that spirit. Once the vaccine is a real thing that can be discussed sensibly that will change.

Most people will take it, and those that won't should find their lives somewhat constrained as a result. Compulsory 14-day quarantine on returning from abroad for a start.

The question was phrased as "if a vaccine were available right now". This is missing details. Available right now and has been widely used by the public for a month, or available right now for the first time? I'll take the vaccine but I'm not going to be first in line.

 

[Darat]

The question was phrased as "if a vaccine were available right now". This is missing details. Available right now and has been widely used by the public for a month, or available right now for the first time? I'll take the vaccine but I'm not going to be first in line.

For me it depends on what tests have been carried out, what the side effects are and how long it will provide immunity. Assuming that all looks OKish I would be fine being part of a first wave of mass vaccinations. Somebody has to take some risk after all.

 

[Joe Random]

Meanwhile, 22% of college students are not enrolling this semester:

"We need some muscle funding over here!"
~Melissa Click

 

[arthwollipot]

For me it depends on what tests have been carried out, what the side effects are and how long it will provide immunity. Assuming that all looks OKish I would be fine being part of a first wave of mass vaccinations. Somebody has to take some risk after all.

Are you a front line health care worker? Then you won't be in the first wave. Are you elderly or at risk? Then you won't be in the second wave. You might be in the third wave.

 

[Rolfe]

See, that's not a good way to plan it. At this stage we don't know the duration of protective immunity from the vaccine. If it's good for at least a year then OK we have maybe nine months to get it into everyone, allowing for slippage and so on. So maybe doing it in these sort of waves makes some sense. But we don't know the duration of immunity. If it's relatively short then we need to get vaccine into everyone who will hold still for it within a time window short enough so that the last people are vaccinated before the first people's protection has worn off. This may be quite a difficult logistical exercise and there may not be time to get all fussy about vulnerable groups and high-risk groups and so on. It might be more efficient to do it geographically, simply to make the logistics easier.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Oh, here's a couple of thoughts - we might see the end of cinema.

Second largest Movie Theater chain in the United States shuts all 536 theaters in the United States and all 176 theaters in the United Kingdom.

New York/London (CNN Business) Cineworld Group, the owner of Regal Cinemas, will suspend operations at all of its theaters in the United States and the United Kingdom beginning on Thursday. The closures will affect 45,000 employees.

CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/04/business/regal-cinemas-theater-shutdown/index.html

 

[Brainster]

Personal observation: I am getting a LOT more requests for tutoring and almost universally the complaint is that they can't get a response from their profs.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

500 UK politicians have signed a letter to Rishi Sunak, imploring him to allow local councils to trial universal basic income schemes

 

[No Other]

Meanwhile, 22% of college students are not enrolling this semester:

College tuition is at it's highest level; it makes sense not to enroll as there may not be as many jobs available upon graduation. When I attended college, my tuition was not that much greater than it was 10 years prior to my enrollment. Granted, I went to a State college versus a private college but my former State college has increased it's tuition by more than a magnitude since...