Why do we think a coronavirus vaccine will be better than a flu vaccine? Flu vaccine only prevents 10% of deaths

Just thinking about any conversation between you two makes my head explode. The grammar, the rushian logic, the ignorance.

We don't know.

Measles vaccine -> immunity for decades at least, often life.

Flu vaccine -> short lived immunity because the viruses mutate a lot.

I've had flu vaccine shots every year for more than 30 years. I am still alive, and I have only gotten the flu twice during that time.

The flu is not genetically similar to COVID-19. Both viruses attack the respiratory system but the similarities pretty much end there. The flu and COVID-19 come from two entirely different families of viruses.

COVID-19 is a new virus meaning it has not had as much time to mutate into many strains. The different strands that already exist are all similar enough that a vaccine for one should be effective for others. The flu on the other hand is obviously very old and there are hundreds (thousands?) of strands that are sufficiently genetically different that the effectiveness of a vaccine has a limited effect.

There is strong a reason ex ante reason to believe that a COVID-19 vaccine would reduce chance of infection by a much larger percentage than influenza. Due to the fact that viruses and other pathogens spread exponentially, even a small decrease in the chance of an individual becoming infected can have a very large effect in aggregate number of infections. (1.1)^N is much, much better than (1.2)^N when N is large. Could be the difference of millions of people. But because people do not understand or at least underestimate exponential growth, people see "10% reduction in infection" and think it's not so great.

At least one problem with your logic is the implicit assumption that 100% of people get the flu vaccine. There are numbers published on seasonal flu vaccine effectiveness, presumably done by competent people. Why not start there?

I don't think cherry picking data points to show the lowest possible benefit makes your point.

Two issues with the flu

1) a lot of people don't get vaccines. If more people got vaccines, the numbers might change.

2) the flu is notoriously quick to evolve and vaccines are designed to treat the version that they predict will be the worst in fall, sometimes they are wrong and its a different strain. Those are probably the '10%' years... other years it 30% or more. Also, their confidence is very low (95% confidence interval on the 3500 in 2018-9 was 1000-13000, in 2017-8 the range was 340-23,000)

Talk of a meaningful vaccine is most likely propaganda by those in federal government to calm the masses and a set of rumors leaked by Big Pharma and N.Y.SE. full service investment firms who underwrite Big Pharma. The most likely case is corona-19 circling the globe for three or four years. Each year, fewer will die. We'll get to 60% or 70% of humans with corona-19 antibodies. We have no choice but to continue physical separation so humans do not overwhelm hospitals. There are only so many doctors and other medical personnel. I hope the medical doctors and biologists who were working on HIV vaccines have not stopped to now work on corona-19 vaccine. Bill Gates talks of a corona-19 vaccine. Why do news sources ask him medical questions as if Gates knows anything? Gates is a believer of an outdated economic theory: Malthusian Economics. All of Gates' work in Africa is winning of hearts & minds so Gates is able to persuade black African women to agree to sterilization and abortions.

Weldon, thanks for the stats and the links. Interesting and useful info. My immediate response: Most adult Americans do not get a flu shot each year. (Think how many more lives might be saved, and how many hospitalizations avoided, if everyone did.) Whether the majority of adults would choose to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 remains to be seen; the mutability of the novel coronavirus is also unknown.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.htm

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Separately:

"twice as worse"

"less hospitalizations"

Come on. You've got to be better than that.

student of economics wrote:

All of [Gates's] work in Africa is winning of hearts & minds so Gates is able to persuade black African women to agree to sterilization and abortions.

Wow--he's really going at it in a subtle and roundabout way, then.

You know, given that he's spending hundreds of millions to try to end a disease that kills thousands of sub-Saharan African children every day.

OR, wait--could it be that you're, you know, completely fucking wrong? Yeah, i suppose that could be another way to go.

I think it is a mistake in the first place to compare COVID19 to the "regular flu" in any sort of way when it comes to data and numbers.

Like other posters have said it is totally different.

The only viable solution is herd immunity. Isolate the old and high risk and let everyone else go out and get it (or wear a mask like they do in South Korea and Hong Kong). It shortens the duration and minimizes the economic impact (and ultimately reduces the number of deaths that would result if we continue to allow 700 people to go unemployed for every COVID death (half of whom are from nursing homes).

Realistically, the timeline on a viable, safety tested vaccine is about 18 months. We would be a third world country if we try to hunker down that long.

kibitzer wrote:

student of economics wrote:

All of [Gates's] work in Africa is winning of hearts & minds so Gates is able to persuade black African women to agree to sterilization and abortions.

Wow--he's really going at it in a subtle and roundabout way, then.

You know, given that he's spending hundreds of millions to try to end a disease that kills thousands of sub-Saharan African children every day.

OR, wait--could it be that you're, you know, completely fucking wrong? Yeah, i suppose that could be another way to go.

https://www.foxnews.com/health/britain-and-bill-gates-pledge-3-billion-pounds-to-fight-malaria

You offered no evidence I am wrong. Does Gates know anything about medicine or biology? You made no mention of abortion rate in Africa pre-Gates and abortion rate in Africa during Gates era. Your foul language impresses no one. You must be a Microsoft shareholder and a Microsoft employee. Regarding the money Gates spends, Gates truly believes in Malthusian economics. The amount of money Gates spends simply confirms the strength of his belief in Malthusian economics.

WHO is heavily funded by Big Pharma and Bill Gates, so I would certainly not trust anything that they say.

People would probably be much better off by doing the opposite of anything that they say.

https://static.mediapart.fr/files/2017/12/31/20130613-newsjunkiepost-b-bill-gates-big-pharma-bogus-philanthropy.pdf

Here's a history of vaccinations and Bill Gates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYRtRFP4SZI&t=65s

I always knew you were the smarter Jo!

My man! ✋

Flew Shots wrote:

I've had flu vaccine shots every year for more than 30 years. I am still alive, and I have only gotten the flu twice during that time.

I have never in my life got a flu shot and have never had the flu.

In over 60 years.

I won't be in line to take any Covid19 vaccine.

Cause people love jabbing themselves. Mostly tin foil hatter's and drug addicts they are. Enjoy injecting all kinds of crap into their bloodstream.

When China first announced that the virus was spreading and implemented lockdowns, the response from many in the US was "what is the big deal", "just a flu", "not Ebola or SARS". My response was that we already have the flu. We do not need two flus. We need to stop this virus dead in its tracks like we did with SARS and MERS. The flu is hard enough. Flu plus even a similar version in COVID would be a disaster. But, here we are.

We really do not know the answer to the vaccine question until we get there. There are generally four different types of vaccines. Some use anti-bodies like the Flu vaccine others work on a genetic level like the Ebola vaccine. It also depends on how much COVID 19 mutates and how well immunologists can keep up with those mutations. The flu vaccine is just a best guess at what the mutations will be once flu season comes around based on emerging strains. If we are lucky, a vaccine could eradicate COVID 19 like it did with polio and small pox. If COVID 19 mutates significantly, a vaccine should still be able to help create herd immunity so that outbreaks are small and easy to contain. Think measles without the anti-vaxxers. The least likely scenario is that the vaccine just has a slight reduction in fatalities such that we should just let everyone get sick because there is no difference and Trump need the economy to open up so he can pay back his Chinese lenders.

Giles Corey wrote:

Flew Shots wrote:

I've had flu vaccine shots every year for more than 30 years. I am still alive, and I have only gotten the flu twice during that time.

I have never in my life got a flu shot and have never had the flu.

In over 60 years.

I won't be in line to take any Covid19 vaccine.

Let me guess. You live in a rural area and do not have a job where you have to deal with a hundred people each day.