We have come to a point where vaccination is the only defence we have against the protracted COVID pandemic. Yet it’s not going to be a clear path ahead because vaccination is too slow.
At the beginning, it looked like we would have it under control pretty rapidly with many lockdowns. Every country had a different response to it, but we all had the same enemy. This virus will claim more lives than some leaders estimated, and finally we all had no choice but to develop a vaccine, in record time.
Yet this vaccine rollout wasn’t perfect in many ways. The main problem was that it was rushed, meaning that its real efficacy can only be determined long after it was first mass produced. This doesn’t allay people’s concerns because of lack of testing in the field.
Compounding the issue is that despite being mass produced, it still isn’t produced fast enough. Why do I say that? It is because the virus will mutate among the unvaccinated (and eventually vaccinated) people to a point where the vaccine stops being as effective. What then?
Well the flu has been around forever, and so has the flu vaccine. The thing is the flu vaccine needs to be taken yearly to protect you from the various strains. Basically we have not eradicated the flu – how are we going to eradicate COVID which is so close to flu?
If it is somehow possible to accelerate the production and issuing of vaccines say by a factor of 10, perhaps we will be on our own way to eradication. Until then, we are just living experiment subjects of rapidly issued vaccines.
Does this mean I don’t support the vaccination? I do wholeheartedly agree with the intention and will happily vaccinate in due course. But these shortcomings should be acknowledged as they are.