WHO’s chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan told a virtual press conference that there was no evidence yet that people who had been vaccinated could enter countries such as Australia without the risk of spreading the disease.
I have questions…..
Asked by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age what this would mean for Australia’s quarantine program, Swaminathan said “I don’t believe we have the evidence on any of the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on”.
I have more questions…..
Dr David Heymann from London’s School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene went further.
“No matter what we’ve done to date, it will continue to spread, despite vaccines, despite therapeutics, despite diagnostic tests,” he said of the virus. “We have to learn to live with this and use the tools that we can in the best way possible.”
He likened the current pandemic to smallpox and the use of the “imperfect vaccine” to control and eventually eradicate the disease.
Smallpox? That disease with a 30% infection fatality rate?
We’re comparing smallpox with a virus from which 99.35% of people infected recover (and that percentage rapidly improves for those under 75)?
How is that useful?
Bill’s Opinion
Several of my friends are convinced the pandemic is a global conspiracy. I constantly argue against this from my experience of dealing with large organisations and governments, where I have learned hive minds are incapable of such efficiency.
Generally, if you want something really fucked up and not achieving the stated outcome, ask a government department to do it.
However, it’s hard to not sympathise with my tin foil hat friends given we’ve just spent the best part of a year cowering in our spare rooms waiting for the miracle to come, then we were told multiple vaccines with 90+% efficacy rates had been produced and now, as they’re being rolled out, we are told cool your jets, you’ll still need to spend two weeks in quarantine when you travel.
The chances of me voluntary taking a vaccine in such circumstances just became significantly less likely. What would be the point?