[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Cherie

No that is correct Mock, you can still carry the virus even if vaccinated

the point of vaccination is that you don't develop the disease in a serious way or enough to be hospitalised

I thought this was just the pfizer one? Sure I read the oxford one actually stops catching/transmisson. Which is why I find it a bit baffling that the pfizer one is the one being pushed really. Its awkward to store, and seems to not actually help the spread or anything. Meanwhile, the oxford one can just be stored in a bog standard fridge for 3 days..it seems the pfizer one is still the key, according to the government, but I cannot see how. It was a good stopgap until others came, but unless I have understood it all wrong (which is entirely possible!) the oxford one should be the main one used..

(otherwise covid-19 will never really go away)

This bit though, is very optomistic. I wish I could believe it will 'go away' but I cannot see it. Much more likely to behave like other coronaviruses, and become a kind of..seasonal illness. That might need a vaccine topup every now and again (possibly alongside the flu jab, as the high risk people for both seem to overlap a lot). There would be a LOT more work involved in totally eradicating it, and I am sure we only ever managed that with smallpox..and that was due to everyone working together and a very very aggressive fight, and a crapload of money because of the sheer numbers dying everywhere. Which I cannot see covid being deemed 'serious enough' for all that effort. Especially if it keeps mutating. My friend who works in virology swears blind that the huge majority of mutations are the virus becoming naturally less deadly..as a virus that kills its host is a crappy virus, in virus terms, its meant to spread easily person to person but not kill them. Or something along those lines. If this follows the same route, in time it will become more and more like..well a cold really (not saying it is this now, bu its the logical endpoint to me). I have found nothing to contradict what she said either..seems it is largely correct in that viruses do tend to get less deadly over time, rather than more.

While it sounds horrendous, 2m people over the whole world dying in a year..I cannot see being deemed serious enough for a smallpox type reaction from leaders.