The Difference

 

Actually, the Pfizer vaccine is in the air now.

Uh-oh

This post is kind of an update of the last two posts, which speculated how and when we would be able to emerge from our quarantine foxholes and begin to live life again.  How and when we get to the new world.

Uh oh.  It turns out that the assumption I used about vaccinated folks - they can't get the virus, and can't transmit it - is only half true.  "Vaccinated people might still be able to transmit the virus" is, apparently, a generally accepted understanding that I have completely missed.  In fact, this is true of people who are vaccinated for lots of common ailments, including "MMR, rotavirus, chicken pox, shingles* and influenza,"   If you get vaccinated, and then get exposed, or you're infected when vaccinated, you could still be infectious after vaccination.

The "might" in the first quotation above is interesting:  the makers of the coronavirus vaccines do not know if we'll be contagious after vaccination or not.  AstraZeneca thinks not, but their vaccine is only about 70% effective, which is not enough for me to take my mask off.

So - extrapolate as needed.  And the news gets worse - after we're vaccinated, if we're shedding the virus, we might be shedding it for weeks, perhaps months, afterwards.  And, please note that this estimate is contained in an article entitled "Should the Recently Vaccinated Be Quarantined to Prevent an Outbreak?"  Oh, boy.

The new world seems to be a moving target.

 * - I didn't even know that shingles was contagious.

Showing the "V"

Hidden deep within a wide-ranging news roundup post, is this interesting tidbit:

The boss of Australia's Qantas airline, Alan Joyce, on Tuesday said proof of vaccination will likely become the only way people will be allowed to fly.

Coincidentally, I was thinking about the new world the other day, and I found myself imagining little stickers, round, maybe an inch across, with a gold "V" on a red background.  Just like the "I voted" stickers.  

Somehow, we'll need to be able to prove, quickly and easily, that we have, in fact, been vaccinated.

Mr. Joyce won't let us on his airplanes if we can't do this.  What else will depend on the "V"?  And how will we prove it?

Let's assume for a moment that vaccination will ensure that we won't get the virus and that we won't give the virus to anyone else.  For a start, that means we won't need to wear a mask.  Which means that the "V", whatever it is, should not be something we have to dig out of our wallet, or look up on our phone.  It will mean that we can eat or drink in a restaurant or bar, and we can go to the movies as long as everyone we pack into the theater with also has a "V".  We can go to work, and go to school.  If 70% of us have our "V", we have herd immunity, which sounds great but won't work out so simply in the real world.

Will the elderly or medically fragile among us be allowed to check for the "V" before entering a class, or a meeting, or an office, or a restaurant?  Will there emerge cultural distinctions, or even prejudices, regarding "V"s and non-"V"s?  

For a brief moment I thought about a tattoo, maybe on the palm.  The forehead?  Probably not.  What else?  How will prove we're "V"-ed?  

And for how long?  How long will it be important to distinguish between those of us who have been vaccinated, and those of us who haven't?   

The new world just got a little more interesting.

Masks and Curbside Pickup - How Long?

I have been vaguely thinking about how vaccinations will change how we do things:  who does what, and why.

We've been waiting for a vaccination since March, and will be waiting a while longer.  But what are we waiting for?

To begin with, we are waiting for the day when we're no longer afraid of getting sick.*  But how will that work?  Normal flu vaccines operate at about 40%-60% efficiency, which means that even if you get a flu vaccine, whether you get sick is a (complicated) coin flip.  The COVID vaccines are testing at better than 90% efficiency, and if that holds up in the real world (not guaranteed), then we can feel a good deal safer.

But will we change our quarantine behavior?  People like me are working on the assumption that if we get COVID-19, we will die, or be so sick, for so long, that we'll wish we were dead.  With the vaccine, if I resume normal life, there's around a 10% chance I'll get the virus.  Russian roulette with a 10-chambered gun.  Worth it?  

Much will depend on how much infection is still out there, which in turn will depend on how many of us actually get the vaccination.  We can depend on the protection of herd immunity with a vaccine once 70% of us have either had the virus or have been vaccinated.  So one approach is to continue quarantine after getting vaccinated, until herd immunity has been declared.

And so on.  There will be much discussion on this and related topics, in the new world.  

 

* - At least those of us who have had the good sense to have spent 2020 being afraid of getting sick.

Amnesia

From what I can tell, this blog is reflecting the wider world's thinking about the new world:  it's not.  Thinking about it, that is.  Posts have been scarce.

Most posts here are the result of my running across something interesting while doing something else.  I haven't been Googling "post-COVID world" much - mostly, I haven't had to.  Interesting ideas seemed to have been around almost every corner.

This is much less true now.  It feels like, at the point where we might be able to speculate vaguely about the date when the pandemic will be "over," we have stopped thinking about what it will be like when we get there.  It's like we're gritting our teeth and screwing our eyes closed, and willing that date to arrive.  Getting through the interregnum by willing it away.

Speaking just for myself, one thought about the new world has been growing, truly unbidden, in my mind.  That is:  we will return to the status quo ante.  Nothing will have changed.  We will be so glad that the pandemic is finally gone - that it is not consuming our full attention, our every action - that we will be very happy to forget it as soon as possible.  Including forgetting everything we learned.

I hope I'm wrong.

2022

I hereby declare that we will not have reached the new world until most (all?) of us do not have to use masks, or practice social distancing, or wash our hands more than we did before.

Unlike many similar unilateral decrees, this one is useful.  It allows for conversations such as:

"New world yet?"

"Speak up, I can't hear you through the mask."

"Guess not."

A brief glance around will tell us if we've made it or not.  Very useful, to know when you've gotten to where you're going.

It also gives us a chance to speculate about just how long this journey is.  This is also useful, because we have been drifting around aimlessly for a while.  So how long is it?

Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke by Zoom to doctors and students at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia last week.  

I feel very strongly that we're going to need to have some degree of public health measures to continue...It's not going to be the way it was with polio and measles, where you get a vaccine, case closed, it's done.  It's going to be public health measures that linger for months and months.

He went on to talk about herd immunity - done the right way, centered on an effective and safe vaccine - and noted that he didn't think that immunity would be achieved to a "profound degree" until late 2021 or early 2022.

And that's if the vaccine process does not encounter significant obstacles that cost significant amounts of time.  The other day, Pizer and BioNTech announced a significant milestone in their vaccine testing:  results indicated that it is "more than 90% effective at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19."

This is great, but we're not there yet.  The study in question included less than 100 people.  Once all the testing is done, the real challenges remain.  There are over seven billion people in the world, and everyone needs two doses of this vaccine for it to work.  The vaccine has to be stored and transported and stored again at eighty degrees below zero (-80) centigrade (which is a startling one hundred and twelve degrees below zero Fahrenheit, if I've done the math right).  Skeptics have to be won over.  Political issues abound; the trickiest, probably, being:  who gets it first?  And will that decision be made on a national level?  Local?  Global?  The elderly, racial minorities, and those with medical vulnerabilities are most at risk - and generally have the least political power.*

So - 2022, if all goes well.  Another breath.  Check the telltale, trim the sails a bit.  Send the watch below for a hot meal.  The new world is still a long way off.

 * - I think that this last issue will be fascinating to watch, and how we work it out will send a clear message to later generations regarding the character of this crew of ours that makes it to the new world.

More Patience

Diego says he saw a bird while he was on watch in the maintop yesterday.  Diego's an idiot, so...

But Bartolome saw it again this morning, at dawn, so it must be.  He's the bo'sun and he knows.  But he says it's an albatross, which means it could still be a thousand miles to land.

So:  more patience.

Reorienting

Whew!  That was close.

If the Presidential election had gone the other way, I had the post prepared:

"This is the last post at this blog.  We have reached the new world."

But instead, we're back on the endless Atlantic, a little bewildered, looking for west.  

Take a breath, check the compass, set the sails.  We've got a long voyage still.