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Reply To: Coronavirus research update

March 17, 2020 at 5:55 am #1497522

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6224xp

We have a vaccine for influenza.
We do not have a vaccine for CoVid.

IMO, THAT is the difference between “the flu” and the coronavirus. Even though a flu vaccine isn’t always effective, it makes transmission of a virus more difficult. Not only can fewer people catch a virus if there’s a vaccine, the people who can catch the virus are spread out further, in effect, keeping that 6′ distance away from someone who’s infected. This also means that those who don’t have a flu shot still benefit from the vaccine because others are immune. This is called “herd immunity”.

I really wish this was stressed better by the media and government. CoVid isn’t measles, but “In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year, among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.”

That’s a lot of hospital beds, and I’m still looking for studies about the long-term effects of CoVid on patients who have recovered. (BTW, Your lungs heal after you quit smoking, and, like smoking, CoVid affects the lungs. Males in China have a higher CoVid death rate, presumably because they smoke.)

Thankfully vaccine research has already started, and we’ll eventually have a vaccine.