Folding Forum

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/11/moderna ... -july.html

Please keep folding! We still need all the information we can get on the virus. And, we need a safe and effective treatment. Not everyone is willing to be vaccinated. (Perhaps we should issue a picture ID with each vaccination to certify a person vaccinated.)

WTS wrote:Perhaps we should issue a picture ID with each vaccination to certify a person vaccinated.

I like that idea. Unfortunately we need a successful vaccine first.

It's too bad that we can't have a ID card saying "I was tested 2 hours ago and have not been within social distance since." but even that's questionable since the actual testing has a success rate of only 50%.

bruce wrote:

WTS wrote:Perhaps we should issue a picture ID with each vaccination to certify a person vaccinated.

I like that idea. Unfortunately we need a successful vaccine first.

It's too bad that we can't have a ID card saying "I was tested 2 hours ago and have not been within social distance since." but even that's questionable since the actual testing has a success rate of only 50%.

I hope and pray we get a successful vaccine soon. There are a lot of candidates. How they chose the final four for "Project Warp Speed" is beyond me. But the more I think about it, color coded, picture IDs (there'll have to be booster shots) are one simple solution. A different color for each shot in the series, with the year stamped on the card, then laminated in plastic. You won't need the card, but no proof of vaccine, a business or person shouldn't be required to let you in. The problem comes from as many as one person in three refusing the shots. This "vaxer" nonsense started in Great Britain as a fraud to allow a group of lawyers to rip off the vaccine companies. The Doctor involved has been stricken off the rolls. He should've been prosecuted! If more than one brand of shot is released, I want them all.

With all due respect … hogwash … anti vaccination protests have been around since vaccines were invented (so since late 17th century) - one of the realities of living in societies with free choice … every country has had their own form of this - usually made more prominent by compulsory vaccination programs … Blaming "Vaxer" on the Brits is simply laughable !

… and if you are referring to the relatively recent involvement of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield then yes he was struck off … but the anti vaccination movement in America has been around for at least a century before he became involved … and I suppose the fact that a Brit created the first vaccine could mean that they are to blame for it all anyway

Having said that I agree with your sentiments - I really do hope successful vaccines are delivered soon.

Unfortunately his "research" gave validation to a number of high profile anti-vaxxers here in the US and elsewhere. That helped them grow from a very small minority of the population to where they are now. Now they are a large enough group that a number of childhood diseases have had large outbreaks in a number of areas. Turns out also that he had a financial interest in one type of vaccine, it wasn't just the lawyers.

But, yes there have been people against vaccinations for a long time. I still recall my ex-wife telling me about the other new mother in her hospital room making a big deal about how she was not going to vaccinate her newborn when the time came because her previous cild had a mild reaction to a vaccine. This was over 30 years ago.

Joe_H wrote:Unfortunately his "research" gave validation to a number of high profile anti-vaxxers here in the US and elsewhere. That helped them grow from a very small minority of the population to where they are now. Now they are a large enough group that a number of childhood diseases have had large outbreaks in a number of areas. Turns out also that he had a financial interest in one type of vaccine, it wasn't just the lawyers.

But, yes there have been people against vaccinations for a long time. I still recall my ex-wife telling me about the other new mother in her hospital room making a big deal about how she was not going to vaccinate her newborn when the time came because her previous cild had a mild reaction to a vaccine. This was over 30 years ago.

https://medcitynews.com/2020/06/chinas- ... cine-data/

What a bind, between a rock and a hard place!

bruce wrote:...but even that's questionable since the actual testing has a success rate of only 50%.

As I understand it, the success rate is much higher but it depends when and where the test was taken.
There's a podcast (unfortunately German only) from Dr. Drosten, who was part of the team that came up with the PCB test for SARS in 200x, and also helped in developing the same for SARS-CoV-2.

Please bear in mind that I'm an only an interested individual trying to regurgitate the key points of over 40h of audio material, and only on the PCB tests:
There are practically no false positives, only false negatives. The false negatives are very rare if taken at the "right time" - as on the patients with respiratory issues, the virus generally catches in the nose and throat, then "moves down" to the lung, the "right time" is before they become seriously ill, which is when the amount of virus in the throat becomes low and you need to catch mucus/sputum to pick it up with a PCB. At that point in time, other tests exist

Why post this? Not to "lecture" those who know better but more to share info with other interested laymen - there seems to be a lot of false information, or information that deliberately ignores key points, from "alternative sources" out there, which is just ...

Feel free to engage, comment, educate, delete...

uyaem wrote:Feel free to engage, comment, educate, delete...

OK. "Success" is a relative term. Not only does it need to be effective in a high enough percentage of cases (whatever that number is) to be worth doing, it must also last long enough.
Most people assume that vaccines are good for life, but only a portion of them are. Many need to be repeated one or more times. So there is room for more than one vaccine. While we are evaluating the success of the first one, we can be administering the second one, etc.

And there are also the questions of cost and safety. We won't know what the one-year safety issues are for one year, the 5-year safety issues for 5 years, etc.

Finally phase 3!
The last phase before FDA approval. However, there are also drugs or vaccine out there which ended up being withdrawn after phase 4 (another trial after approval) because it brings more harm than good, the recent example is dengue vaccine. Let's hope for the best.

We all know that a safe, effective vaccine is going to be one tough nut to crack. But, it has to be done. The economic and social damage this virus is doing gets worse day by day. Even in areas where the "curve has been flattened" or cases reduced to nearly zero, people and governments must live in fear of a new outbreak, borders remain closed, the economy remains in uncertainty, not to mention the chance of long term organ damage the virus may cause in even the recovered. It's pretty depressing. It's going to get no way but worse until we have safe and effective treatments and vaccines. Until we do, I hope a lot more people will volunteer for the trials. The last estimate I heard was the first part of 2021. Until then, please keep on folding, please keep passing the F@H URL around to everyone you can.

This Scientific American article gives a good overview of what the virus is, how our immune system responds, and how the virus evades it.
Then, it gets into vaccines.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/inte ... ronavirus/

It is a smart little bugger. We need to be smarter.

+1: It's a smart little bugger.

I have hope that the moonshot is finding proteins that can outsmart it. Sure, somebody may find a vaccine that's safe and effective before moonshot succeeds, and I hope they do, but that would be an incredible piece of luck.