Incidentally, mumps is something that is decreasing in prevalence because of coronavirus precautions. In normal times, 88% isn't quite enough for herd immunity to mumps and there are sporadic outbreaks. I (M35) got it last year even though I was vaccinated along with almost everyone from my age cohort and younger, and everyone significantly older is immune because they contracted it in childhood. But that outbreak which began in late 2018 went away very quickly in April-May 2020 [0]
Yes but those are near lifetime immunities. Not said (that I'm aware of) with these two covid vaccines is how long they protect for. If it is less than a year it will be very hard to get and keep people taking it.
The cost of getting a booster every year is minuscule compared to the number of lives lost, not to mention the hit to the world economy.
A working vaccine is a huge W. If immunity only lasts 12 months instead of 10 years that just decreases the font size down to 64 point from 72 point. I'll take it.
That may be but they must have some indication of how strong a response those who got the vaccine are generating vs the time they entered the trial. Is there fall off? More or less than expected? How confident are they that immunity will last at least a year?
They don't really have an indication of that. The way these trials work is just that they send everyone out to live their lives and check infection rates in the experimental group against the control group, so there's no effective way to dig in deeper to the biomechanics of it. A standardized measurement of immune response could only be done through what's known as a "challenge trial", where participants are deliberately infected with a predetermined dose; some of these are in the works, but none have yet been approved or performed.
Lifetime immunity doesn't make much economic sense. If you have a vaccine with people and governments from all over the world begging for you to sell it to them, vaccine as a service seems like a more efficient model than a one-time purchase.
Not for the market leader, and maybe not for number two. But if you're at the end of the pack, nobody buys from you and you look at the 10 billion people market you could get with a lifetime vaccine...
Which is why monopolies are bad. You don't have a pack anymore, and the leader(s) don't have incentive to do much disruption.
I just got a SHRINGRX vaccine which is rated 97% effective. The second dose provoked a much stronger reaction, perhaps because I had some antibodies from the first.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html#:~:te...
"One dose of MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles, 78% effective against mumps, and 97% effective against rubella.
Two doses of MMR vaccine are 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps."