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>Can we afford to administer billions of vaccines that don’t even work?

the seen and the unseen strikes again

We have already sacrificed trillions of dollars in shutting down or greatly restricting the global economy for a year, so any questions of "can we afford" are totally moot by now



I don't just mean dollars. Getting everyone vaccinated is a huge national effort, nine to twelve months long, that we need almost everyone to participate in. Everyone has to trust the institution. So what happens if the first two vaccines were benign but also ineffective? How do you convince 300 million people that this time we've got it right?

It's worth noting the fastest ever vaccine development before this was 4 years; the early COVID vaccines were developed & authorized in 9 months and a large risk production ramp was started before authorization was granted.


> nine to twelve months long, ... So what happens if the first two vaccines were benign but also ineffective?

We'd know it was ineffective by 3 months tops. Presumably several vaccines would be in play, and after 3 months switch to the more effective ones.

We'd have had an effective vaccine loong before 9 months.




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