Escape mutants (like omicron) are one reason why vaccine efficacy is declining, and why there's only 1 coronavirus we've ever beaten (and nature helped us on that one, lol). Failing efficacy is not a surprise to scientists, but vaccines did their job by accelerating selection of less lethal variants. The scientific and engineering feat of developing and launching a vaccine in the time they did is one of the modern miracles of medicine.
J&J failure is a reminder that vaccines have a really high threshold for success (forget your Pareto 80/20 rule... a 99/1 rule isn't good enough because people are pissed if it's not 99.9999/0.00001), and it's hard to hit that threshold for efficacy/side effects even when the virus isn't staying one step ahead. BCG (for tuberculosis) is a more spectacular failure, and the Black Plague vaccine failed because it caused too much inflammation.
Also media gets science wrong on a good day when there's no agenda. So when there's a coordinated vaccination campaign, good luck on seeing any actual science. But y'all know science isn't how people are persuaded in the first place. It makes sense from a policy perspective, even if you disagree with the policy. Not trusting the vaccine campaign because of who's pushing it also makes sense.
Escape mutants (like omicron) are one reason why vaccine efficacy is declining, and why there's only 1 coronavirus we've ever beaten (and nature helped us on that one, lol). Failing efficacy is not a surprise to scientists, but vaccines did their job by accelerating selection of less lethal variants. The scientific and engineering feat of developing and launching a vaccine in the time they did is one of the modern miracles of medicine.
J&J failure is a reminder that vaccines have a really high threshold for success (forget your Pareto 80/20 rule... a 99/1 rule isn't good enough because people are pissed if it's not 99.9999/0.00001), and it's hard to hit that threshold for efficacy/side effects even when the virus isn't staying one step ahead. BCG (for tuberculosis) is a more spectacular failure, and the Black Plague vaccine failed because it caused too much inflammation.
Also media gets science wrong on a good day when there's no agenda. So when there's a coordinated vaccination campaign, good luck on seeing any actual science. But y'all know science isn't how people are persuaded in the first place. It makes sense from a policy perspective, even if you disagree with the policy. Not trusting the vaccine campaign because of who's pushing it also makes sense.
Great letter