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Medicine

Anthony Fauci on the Coronavirus and the Prospects for a Vaccine (newyorker.com) 94

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
In the video here, you can watch excerpts from New Yorker journalist Michael Specter and Fauci's conversation, which encompassed the hard lessons of the AIDS epidemic, Americans' fraught relationship with scientific and medical authority, and possible time lines for the development and distribution of a coronavirus vaccine. The key questions, Fauci told Specter, are not just when a vaccine will be available but how effective it will be and how many people will receive it. These are just a few of the factors that will determine the answer to one of the more lighthearted questions posed by Specter, after months of distancing and isolation: "Will we ever be able to go to the movies again?" While cautious about making specific predictions, Fauci expressed optimism about whether Americans are ever again going to be able to watch a movie in a theatre. "Yes, we are, Michael," Fauci said. "And I'll even buy you a ticket."
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Anthony Fauci on the Coronavirus and the Prospects for a Vaccine More

Anthony Fauci on the Coronavirus and the Prospects for a Vaccine

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  • ...Fauci told Specter, are not just when a vaccine will be available

    ...

    [...bold mine...]

    Why waste time/resources when citizens are dying daily - that's not to mention the disruption in their way of life? Russia has 2 vaccines already [neweurope.eu], but politics will prevent western states from touching these vaccines even with a 10ft pole, even if they turn out to be the most effective.

    Is it a coincidence that Russia's breakthroughs in this space have attracted little to no mention in western media?

    My suggestion: Put the products under fervent scrutiny. Let's see whether they work or

    • Why would you think Russia will have any to export in any near term amount of time given the scale of their own outbreak? Most of the trouble with vaccinating everyone will be logistics, there'll be enough candidates that pass safety and efficacy. I expect there'll be at least a half dozen vaccines in widespread use once we can make enough doses.

    • As far as I know, the problem with a vaccine given to people who are not currently ill, in order to prevent infection, is that the vaccine has to be proven to be safe. If a vaccine were applied to as many people as possible, but was then found to have harmful side effects in a few cases, all hell would break loose. This is especially so when there is irrational anti-vaxer disinformation at work.

      The situation is rather different with drugs such as steroids, that are given to patients who already have severe

  • Americans don't need a vaccine, their president said it wasn't a problem. There'a millions more doses for the rest of the world.

  • Excerpts (Score:3)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @11:21AM (#60610018)

    Dear New York Times,

    This is the internet. You do not have to post excerpts, you can just post the entire thing. If it's interesting, people will watch.

    • Dear JBMcB, just because this is the internet doesn't change people's attention span. The reason we post excerpts is... oh look cat video, brb.

  • What is required is a much more nuanced approach and its shameful that we haven't moved on from the initial panic and fear. The politicians have now had 9 months to do something more than scream "LOCKDOWN!" They have done nothing but made this political. The news media has done nothing but exacerbate this and call everyone else idiots.

    Here is one example. Here in our town our college reconvened. College age kids came back to school where they were away from their families and older relatives. The

    • Re:There is no plan! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @12:29PM (#60610398)

      What is required is a much more nuanced approach and its shameful that we haven't moved on from the initial panic and fear. The politicians have now had 9 months to do something more than scream "LOCKDOWN!"

      Agreed, but not for the reasons you might think. Instead of just 'screaming' about lockdown, they should have done it - fast and brutally hard, but mercifully brief - about a month would have done the job if they'd gotten off their asses fast enough and committed to a sensible course of action. It's the waffling and hedging and infighting that's let this thing go on for so long.

      Here in our town our college reconvened. College age kids came back to school where they were away from their families and older relatives. These kids were not intermingling with older and compromised people on a regular basis. Of course large numbers of them got COVID. None of them died. ONE ended up in the hospital, which was for 8 hours for an inhaler. These kids were locked down on campus, couldn't go anywhere, healed and developed immunity. Now, those kids can't spread the disease any longer.

      There are two things wrong with what you've said. First, your observation that 'none of them died' totally ignores the strong likelihood that at least some of them now have timebombs ticking inside just waiting to go off in the form of strokes, heart attacks, etc. Second, some of them may have developed a temporary immunity. All the best evidence so far indicates that 'herd immunity' just won't happen with this virus - people have been re-infected with the same strain, never mind second infections with different variants of the virus. So yes, those kids can STILL spread the virus if they're exposed again - even if they show no symptoms.

      Of course the issue with this approach is that none of it empowers the people and none of it is nuanced.

      The people ARE empowered - they can wear masks, keep their distance from one another, and was their hands frequently. If everybody did this religiously, then going back to the workplace with modified procedures and lots of caution might be tolerably safe. But as usual, a bunch of snowflake fucktards whinging about 'muh freedumbs' spoil it for the responsibly-behaved rest of us. And the fact that in the States there's been a hard vacuum in the realm of leadership has multiplied that effect. So don't talk to me about 'empowerment' until almost everyone is actually taking advantage of the powers we already have to make this better.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Arzaboa ( 2804779 )

        I would have to disagree with you on your statement that people are empowered. There is more to being empowered than simply being told to do something. Sure they can wear masks and be hygienic and that is a good thing, but that does not give people all of the information that they need. What I am speaking of is being empowered to understand and figure out for themselves their own susceptibility to this virus and to really understand how they can spread it.

        I look around and people are completely scare

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khchung ( 462899 )

        What is required is a much more nuanced approach and its shameful that we haven't moved on from the initial panic and fear. The politicians have now had 9 months to do something more than scream "LOCKDOWN!"

        Agreed, but not for the reasons you might think. Instead of just 'screaming' about lockdown, they should have done it - fast and brutally hard, but mercifully brief - about a month would have done the job if they'd gotten off their asses fast enough and committed to a sensible course of action. It's the waffling and hedging and infighting that's let this thing go on for so long.

        While I absolutely agree with you that a lockdown is the right approach, I think you have vastly underestimated the difficulty of such a lockdown.

        India tried that early in the pandemic. The result? Massive outflow of people from the cities because the workers cannot afford to live there anymore, which just might spread the virus that much faster. And in the end, India had to lift the lockdown because people cannot live with it anymore.

        A China-style hard lockdown required a few things:
        - general trust and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pesho ( 843750 )

      What is required is a much more nuanced approach and its shameful that we haven't moved on from the initial panic and fear. The politicians have now had 9 months to do something more than scream "LOCKDOWN!" They have done nothing but made this political.

      Political is the only think they know how to do or are willing to do. The nuanced approach you speak of requires competent government formed by people willing to govern rather than "take government out of our lives", people willing to accept responsibility for their actions rather than pathological narcissists, and people educated enough to discern sound advice based on facts from ideology.

      The lock-down, which should have been implemented harder and faster is just a temporary measure to give enough time f

      • Couldn't agree with you more. The entire thing is shameful and we are still no better off.

        --
        It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. - Confucius

    • The politicians have now had 9 months to do something more than scream "LOCKDOWN!"

      If people actually listened to experts instead of ignoring them they wouldn't have been screaming anything. But instead we get a scream of LOCKDOWN! met with a counter scream of ECONOMY! replied with AT LEAST WEAR A MASK! and then retorted with MUH FREEDOMS!

      If America wasn't red vs blue, black vs white, and everyone seemingly existing only to tell someone else they are wrong then we'd be talking about what future programs are in store from each political party in the upcoming election. Instead we're only ta

  • Movies (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday October 15, 2020 @01:50PM (#60610932)

    False. We're not going to watch movies again. Not because of virus fear or covid, but because Hollywood is never going to make movies that don't suck.

    • The devil cannot create, he can only imitate.

    • but because Hollywood is never going to make movies that don't suck.

      a) the world is bigger than Hollywood.
      b) your opinion is noted and filed in the wastepaper basked. The Avengers branded one proving that the masses disagree with you, A LOT.

      In other news you should check out Tenet. Quite the good movie if you can get over yourself and suffer through a Hollywood movie.

    • False. We're not going to watch movies again. Not because of virus fear or covid, but because Hollywood is never going to make movies that don't suck.

      Having watched some truly ancient movies recently, I am inclined to agree. These were films made before computing even existed, let alone computer generated animation. Actors had to act in those days. The crappy special effects did not matter that much, because there was an actual story with characters in it. All this is entirely possible now, but maybe the talent is getting smothered by the commercial dross. Sorry. Totally off topic.

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