I have long said that all this lockdown and mask stuff was anti-science. I've also long said that the goal should have been to avoid the severe reactions rather than infection because an airborne virus will eventually infect everyone. Since it is the severe reactions that kills people, getting people to sufficient levels of vitamin D should have been a long term goal (it takes a while for levels to get up there). Secondly the use of Zinc and Quercetin as a means of first line prophylaxis AND as a means of suppressing the virus when it enters the cells. Lastly the use of Ivermectin if a person is tested, by that person and anyone they live with would have been the final line. Anyone who falls over (dies) would have had to have been severely ill before hand. This would have had the effect of pushing survival rates from it's current 95% (if including the 80+ yo who are most vulnerable) to 99.9%, if not higher. In such a case a "vaccine" is not only not needed but would probably perform worse than the natural response with available therapies. Merck has figured this out:
KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced that the company is discontinuing development of its SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccine candidates, V590 and V591, and plans to focus its SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 research strategy and production capabilities on advancing two therapeutic candidates, MK-4482 and MK-7110. This decision follows Merck’s review of findings from Phase 1 clinical studies for the vaccines. In these studies, both V590 and V591 were generally well tolerated, but the immune responses were inferior to those seen following natural infection and those reported for other SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines. Merck continues to advance clinical programs and to scale-up manufacturing for two investigational medicines, MK-7110 and MK-4482 (molnupiravir); molnupiravir is being developed in collaboration with Ridgeback Bio. [ my emphasis]
Say, what's the effectiveness of other vaccines?
However, this early protection comes with some important caveats. First, the protection doesn't kick in until at least day 12 – until then, there was no difference between the two groups. Secondly, one dose is still significantly less protective than two. The latter is 95% effective at preventing the disease after a week.
I see.
So the superior path is developing natural immunity and using theraputics to avoid the most severe reactions which have a side effect of the population getting healthier given that proper vitamin D levels is good for the population and Zinc inhibits influenza reproduction as well. Two-fer.
