Lockdown 3.0: It’s a vaccine, not a cure!

Another week in Lockdown completed, and while the end is still nowhere in site in terms of a full, unfettered return to the wild, the light at the end of the tunnel does appear to be shining a little brighter.

Our personal world remains small and consistent: we are in a support bubble with my parents who have now been vaccinated – father two doses of Pfizer and mother one of Oxford – so I see them couple of times and week, and Sands joins me once a week (she also sees her mother once a month again now that she has been vaccinated as part of her approved car package). As of next week the cleaners will return as will be three weeks since mother’s vaccination, and they are adept now at social distancing! We walk the dogs most days, do some exercise, buy stuff online – we did this pretty much all the time pre pandemic and will continue to do so post pandemic – watch a little TV, play with the animals, eat sleep and repeat!

My expectations, and hopes, are small, and I think realistic: my parents enjoy monthly lunches at Weston Park and Woodlands (Chase Golf Club) and it would be good if these opened again in April. I am hopeful, but not expectant, that the County Cricket will be an option in April on a limited basis for members, and that the internationals and T20’s starting in June will see something resembling full houses return. Ditto the concerts we have booked, although I would probably prefer to wait until September for large indoor concerts, so have fingers crossed that The Who, Sophie Ellis Baxter and Queen will reschedule. If we can have our annual BBQ at the end of May life will feel pretty much back to normal. Regards Manchester United I am doubtful that much will happen before September, but that is fine. As for our apartment in Spain, we are planning on going at the end of the year.

I do understand that many have different expectations and needs, but having got so close to the end it seems a tad foolish to rush ahead too soon, or quickly. Cases may be falling, and the pressure may be easing on the NHS but it will take them months to a) take a breath and recover personally and b) make any inroads into the cases that have been prioritised down during the pandemic, and that is before they factor in the return of the Saturday Night Stupidity cases!

Years ago adverts for seatbelts (Clunk Click Every Trip) stressed that the majority of accidents occurred within a mile or so from the home: the point being that we relaxed, switched off, started to think about the next thing once we thought we were “nearly there”. I am reminded of this daily.

It takes a particular type of stupid to make this Government look anything other than inept, but somehow a (I hope) small minority seem to have mastered the art of doing so during this pandemic. The latest example is all the hysteria about effectiveness levels of the various vaccines for different ages and strains of the virus.

Back in March 2020 the scientists, and for once the Government, told us that the end game was a vaccine which enabled us to live with COVID-19 as we do with Flu, as it was not going to go away. Back in March we were told this …..

The fact that we have so many vaccines available is simply amazing and one can only think that the 2021 Noble Peace Prize in Physiology and Medicine is going to have a long list of recipients.

The fact that so many people seem not to understand what a vaccine is or does is frankly bizarre.

The main purpose of the virus is to prevent death or serious illness as a result of catching the virus. Again, think Flu. Much was made during the early months by the “deniers” that people still died from Flu each year, and of course they are correct, unfortunately many do, and many still need hospital treatment as well, but the point is that is very much a minority and a known entity so puts little extra strain on the Health Service. And many many more, even with the vaccine, still catch Flu ….. but a mild does, they recover life goes on, we know how to live with it.

So please stop being so stupid that you make this government seem like they are bordering on competent: take the time to realise that a vaccine is not a cure, nor is it likely to eradicate the virus. Have your vaccine as soon as you can, and be thankful that you are able to do your bit to protect others, and get used to the fact that we are going to have an annual booster just as we do with the Flu vaccinations. Life will get back to normal, the bigger question is can we create a cure for stupidity?

What the WHO Say about Vaccines

Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases, before they come into contact with them. It uses your body’s natural defenses to build resistance to specific infections and makes your immune system stronger. Vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies, just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria, they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications.

Vaccines reduce risks of getting a disease by working with your body’s natural defenses to build protection. When you get a vaccine, your immune system responds. It:

• Recognizes the invading germ, such as the virus or bacteria.
• Produces antibodies. Antibodies are proteins produced naturally by the immune system to fight disease.
• Remembers the disease and how to fight it. If you are then exposed to the germ in the future, your immune system can quickly destroy it before you become unwell.

The vaccine is therefore a safe and clever way to produce an immune response in the body, without causing illness.

Our immune systems are designed to remember. Once exposed to one or more doses of a vaccine, we typically remain protected against a disease for years, decades or even a lifetime. This is what makes vaccines so effective. Rather than treating a disease after it occurs, vaccines prevent us in the first instance from getting sick.

Vaccines work by training and preparing the body’s natural defences – the immune system – to recognize and fight off viruses and bacteria. If the body is exposed to those disease-causing pathogens later, it will be ready to destroy them quickly – which prevents illness. 

When a person gets vaccinated against a disease, their risk of infection is also reduced – so they’re also less likely to transmit the virus or bacteria to others. As more people in a community get vaccinated, fewer people remain vulnerable, and there is less possibility for an infected person to pass the pathogen on to another person. Lowering the possibility for a pathogen to circulate in the community protects those who cannot be vaccinated (due to health conditions, like allergies, or their age) from the disease targeted by the vaccine.

‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when immunity develops in a population either through vaccination or through previous infection. Herd immunity does not mean unvaccinated or individuals who have not previously been infected are themselves immune. Instead, herd immunity exists when individuals who are not immune, but live in a community with a high proportion of immunity, have a reduced risk of disease as compared to non-immune individuals living in a community with a small proportion of immunity. 

In communities with high immunity, the non-immune people have a lower risk of disease than they otherwise would, but their reduced risk results from the immunity of people in the community in which they are living (i.e. herd immunity) not because they are personally immune. Even after herd immunity is first reached and a reduced risk of disease among unimmunized people is observed, this risk will keep falling if vaccination coverage continues to increase. When vaccine coverage is very high, the risk of disease among those who are non-immune can become similar to those who are truly immune.

WHO supports achieving ‘herd immunity’ through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through a population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths. 

For COVID-19, a new disease causing a global pandemic, many vaccines are in development and some are in the early phase of rollout, having demonstrated safety and efficacy against disease. The proportion of the population that must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to begin inducing herd immunity is not known.  This is an important area of research and will likely vary according to the community, the vaccine, the populations prioritized for vaccination, and other factors. 

Herd immunity is an important attribute of vaccines against polio, rotavirus, pneumococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type B, yellow fever, meningococcus and numerous other vaccine preventable diseases. Yet it is an approach that only works for vaccine-preventable diseases with an element of person-to-person spread. For example, tetanus is caught from bacteria in the environment, not from other people, so those who are unimmunized are not protected from the disease even if most of the rest of the community is vaccinated.

Source: The World Health Organisation