Thread: Corona Virus

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Perhaps worth pointing out that as far as I know, Australia is the only country that is delaying starting vacccination until approval of the vaccine is given using normal procedures. All other countries I believe started administering the vaccines with emergency approval.

In the NZ context I see words like "provisional approval", "Streamlined process", and "Robust" but not emergency...

COVID-19: Vaccines | Ministry of Health NZ

Originally Posted by ChookD2

I'm having a Bob moment.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...pread-covid-19

Yes, it will be interesting to see how our health authorities (and state governments) react to the prospect of vaccinated people arriving in Australia without quarantine at some point in the future when we have reached the maximum achievable vaccinated population. I reckon its likely that Covid will remain endemic in the rest of the world and we will need to determine effectiveness windows and maintain boosters in order to open our borders and travel overseas.

This is a long way from the current position of a lockdown every time there is a possibility of community transmission and quite a mindset change...


Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by ChookD2

I'm having a Bob moment.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...pread-covid-19

It's called an epiphany. I'm amazed it's still here, and not been moved.


"a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization."

Originally Posted by superquag

When we got the Polio Vaccine, what was our primary expectation ?- (Hint: That we did not or would not 'get' polio. ?)

When we got the measles, or the mumps or Spon Plague Vaccine, - what was our expectation? Yep, NOT 'getting' the disease.

WHO ~Definition of vaccines (2012) – Constitution Watch

What do these gene therapies (Pfizer and Moderna) promise....

- and deliver ?

The COVID vaccines have been developed very quickly, compared to ' normal' vaccine development. Possibly the vaccine closest to it in development time is the Ebola vaccine. Thousands died from Ebola before the vaccine was available, millions have died from COVID, so far. However, the development of Covid vaccines is still on going, in an attempt to keep pace with the mutation of Covid into the [ by now] many variations around the World . Variations that make the virus more dangerous, and more easily transmitted. I regard the Covid vaccine as a stop gap measure, essential to protect the population in the short term [ by this, it has been said that Covid will be with us for years, perhaps forever, like the flu] until a definitive vaccine is produced that will keep all variants of Covid under control.

I believe we should all get vaccinated, because in order for a pandemic to end, the disease in question has to reach a point at which it is unable to find enough hosts to catch it and spread it. [ hence the success of rapid lock downs in Australia]

Just a bit of history;

Early attempts to inoculate people against smallpox – one of history’s most feared illnesses, with a death rate of 30% – were reported in China as early as the 16th Century. Smallpox scabs could be ground up and blown into the recipient’s nostrils or scratched into their skin.

The practice, known as “variolation”, came into fashion in Europe in 1721, with the endorsement of English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but was later met with public outcry after it transpired 2-3% of people died after inoculation, and further outbreaks were triggered.

The next iteration of inoculation, which turned out to be much safer than variolation, originated from the observation that dairy farmers did not catch smallpox. The 18th Century English physician, Edward Jenner, hypothesised that prior infection with cowpox – a mild illness spread from cattle – might be responsible for the suspected protection against smallpox. And so, he set to work on a series of experiments, now considered the birth of immunology, vaccine therapy, and preventive health.

In 1796, Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old boy by taking pus from the cowpox lesions on a milkmaid’s hands and introducing the fluid into a cut he made in the boy’s arm. Six weeks later, Jenner exposed the boy to smallpox, but he did not develop the infection then, or on 20 subsequent exposures.


In the years that followed, Jenner collected evidence from a further 23 patients infected or inoculated with the cowpox virus, to support his theory that immunity to cowpox did indeed provide protection against smallpox.

The earliest vaccination – the origin of the term coming from the Latin for cow (“vacca”) – was born. Jenner’s vaccination quickly became the major means of preventing smallpox around the world, even becoming mandatory in some countries.


Almost a century after Jenner developed his technique, in 1885, the French biologist, Louis Pasteur, saved a nine-year-old boy’s life after he was bitten by a rabid dog, by injecting him with a weakened form of the rabies virus each day for 13 days. The boy never developed rabies and the treatment was heralded a success. Pasteur coined his therapy a “rabies vaccine”, expanding the meaning of vaccine beyond its origin.

The global influence of Louis Pasteur led to the expansion of the term vaccine to include a long list of treatments containing live, weakened or killed viruses, typically given in the form of an injection, to produce immunity against an infectious disease.


Scientific advances in the first half of the 20th Century led to an explosion of vaccines that protected against whooping cough (1914), diphtheria (1926), tetanus (1938), influenza (1945) and mumps (1948). Thanks to new manufacturing techniques, vaccine production could be scaled up by the late 1940s, setting global vaccination and disease eradication efforts in motion.

Vaccines against polio (1955), measles (1963), rubella (1969) and other viruses were added to the list over the decades that followed, and worldwide vaccination rates shot up dramatically thanks to successful global health campaigns. The world was announced smallpox-free in 1980, the first of many big vaccine success stories, but there was still a long way to go with other infectious diseases.

By the late 1990s, the progress of international immunization programmes was stalling. Nearly 30 million children in developing countries were not fully immunized against deadly diseases, and many others weren’t immunized at all. The problem was that new vaccines were becoming available but developing countries simply could not afford them.

In response, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and partners came together in 2000 to set up the Global Alliance for Vaccines and immunization, now called Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The aim was to encourage manufacturers to lower vaccine prices for the poorest countries in return for long-term, high-volume and predictable demand from those countries. Since its launch, child deaths have halved, and 13 million deaths have been prevented.


The devastating 2014/2015 Ebola virus was a wake up call for how ill-prepared the world was to handle such an epidemic. A vaccine was eventually approved but came too late for the thousands of people who lost their lives.

In response, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) was launched at Davos in 2017, a global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organizations working to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for affected populations during outbreaks.

We’ve come a long way since the risky and gruesome early inoculation efforts five centuries ago. Scientific innovation, widespread global health campaigns, and new public-private partnerships are literally lifesavers. Finding a vaccine to protect the world against the new coronavirus is an enormous challenge, but if there’s one thing we can learn from history, it’s that there is reason for hope.

Why go to Wikipedia when we have Bobipedia on the AULRO Channel.

Originally Posted by 101RRS

Why go to Wikipedia when we have Bobipedia on the AULRO Channel.

A heads up, if you want to travel to the cape, check out the gold post in Walrus. Worth your while.

Originally Posted by bob10

It's called an epiphany. I'm amazed it's still here, and not been moved.


"a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization."

Only happens to repeat offenders...

Originally Posted by Homestar

Only happens to repeat offenders...

"a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization."

Sounds like a normal day here.