vesicles
Colonel
I would like to remind everyone that a vaccine has two purposes: (1) to completely protect people from viral infection; (2) partial protection (if infected, alleviate the symptoms and save lives). It is never intended for any vaccine to only act to completely prevent infection. We know this from our experience with flu vaccines. With flu vaccines, even when we are sick, we can get better within a couple days instead of the normal a few weeks.
Data on the current Pfizer and Moderna vaccines only show complete protection vs. symptomatic. Solely looking at the complete protection is kind of extreme. We are asking a vaccine to do the impossible. We cannot ignore those cases, where the symptoms of those with vaccines become milder. If we can lower the severity of the symptoms to a level of a common flu, that would be equally great. However, because of the time constraint and the limited number of the infected individuals in these trials, the severity of an infection cannot be properly evaluated in a clinical trial. Hopefully, we will see the effect of vaccines on severity in a few months when a major population has been inoculated.
Data on the current Pfizer and Moderna vaccines only show complete protection vs. symptomatic. Solely looking at the complete protection is kind of extreme. We are asking a vaccine to do the impossible. We cannot ignore those cases, where the symptoms of those with vaccines become milder. If we can lower the severity of the symptoms to a level of a common flu, that would be equally great. However, because of the time constraint and the limited number of the infected individuals in these trials, the severity of an infection cannot be properly evaluated in a clinical trial. Hopefully, we will see the effect of vaccines on severity in a few months when a major population has been inoculated.
Last edited: