[nahqz]

There is absolutely no way to stop the spread forever. Just suggesting it is crazy. It is an option you have to forget about.

Stalling the spread is useless as well - we have already had two major mutations in less than two years.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> There is absolutely no way to stop the spread forever.

There's a significant difference between COVID-19/SARS-COV-2 become endemic, and it continuing as a pandemic that threatens public health systems due to caseload density. Yes, we're unlikely to get beyond it being endemic, which means that like influenza, it will continue to be an issue, but we can certainly get a point where it is "just endemic", which would be a huge improvement over the current situation.

[Spare_account]

>we have already had two major mutations in less than two years.

How frequently do equivalent Flu mutations occur?

[hcurtiss]

Every. Single. Year.

[toyg]

> There is absolutely no way to stop the spread forever.

Well, there is, we just don't want to pay for it: vaccinating poor countries, where effectively the mutations are being created by high infection rates.

[dharbin]

Don't forget to vaccinate the wild deer and other animals that catch and spread COVID.

[TacticalCoder]

I don't understand: every single study out there says that vaccinated people do still catch the virus and can still spread it.

Why would the current crop of vaccines be able to stop the virus, even if applied worldwide, seen that they don't prevent infection?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

If the vaccine brings R0 down to below 1.0 for vaccinated people, then the vaccine offers a way to get the virus to an endemic situation rather than a pandemic.

The evidence is still not solid on whether or not it does this, as far as I am aware.

[nahqz]

The vaccine hasn't stopped spread in rich countries, why would it do so in poor countries?

Also there haven't been enough variants as to determine that most variants are coming from poor countries. Speaking of delta, India has more population than the entirety of Europe. Mathematically it makes sense than a variant could come from there regardless of whether the vaccine does anything.

[bluGill]

> The vaccine hasn't stopped spread in rich countries, why would it do so in poor countries?

It has greatly slowed the spread. The highest vaccinated countries have almost stopped it. There is every reason to believe that high vaccination across the world would stop covid, and anything less will ensure continued spread (and mutations).

People demanding an all or nothing from a vaccine are missing the big picture.

[hcurtiss]

The highest vaccinated countries have almost stopped it? Israel had among the highest vaccination rates in the world prior to its most recent peak, which has now declined. Other countries are going through the same thing. There is only a very rough/weak correlation between vaccination rate and positive cases.

[bluGill]

Isreal hasn't been among the highest vaccinated countries in quite a while. They got over 50% early, but stalled out. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations (Isreal isn't selected by default) Check out countries like Portugal if you want to see what high vaccination does.

[nojokes]

It is depressing how people pretend that it is the same virus every time.

Israel has faced waves of 3 different viruses - original, Alpha and Delta what have required different level of immunization and Israel has managed to vaccinate itself out of 2 of these waves.

Looks quite impressive to me.

I also fail to understand why people pretend that 2 doses should be expected to stop Delta that has higher viral load - it does not make any sense.

It is a probabilistic game - antibodies are not smart - they are like mines - you need to have high enough concentration to stop viral particles to move around. If the viral particles can overload this concentration - they are going to win. There obviously must be some threshold of antibody concentration below what you can't avoid infection - when 2 dose regimen reaches it too quickly, well, game over. 3rd dose regimen is known to boost antibody concentration and keep it high for longer time. There is no surprise here and yet even people in position (like WHO) that should know better have intentionally ignored it.