I recently saw social media comments from a virologist who noted that eventually – nearly everyone in the world will be vaccinated or will end having Covid-19 (with or without symptoms) until most everyone has immunity, via vaccination or infection acquired-immunity.
That is the clearest explanation of how this proceeds that anyone has used.
Last year, a retired doctor in the UK pointed out that as far as the path forward went then, there was no path forward in which some people would not get sick and die. And he was right. At the time, many thought that we could “lockdown” our way to zero deaths; that obviously did not work.
Related: from the posts I see on social media, I’d guess 95% of those who use social media have no understanding of how a vaccine works. 95% seem to think a vaccine works by blocking the disease as if you were surrounded by an impenetrable wall. No, that is not how it works.
A vaccine trains your immune system to respond quickly. Even if vaccinated, you can “test positive” for SARS-CoV-2, the virus. You may even have symptoms of Covid-19, the disease. If all worked well, the vaccine trained your immune system to respond very quickly – giving your immune system a head start to fight off the disease before it becomes bad. A vaccine does not totally prevent the disease – it gives you a club to beat it up when it arrives.
Most people do not seem to understand that, which we can blame on bad public health messaging and even worse media incompetence.
