Lots of interesting developments on the vaccine front with four effective ones now coming to the end of their trials and expected to be approved by regulators shortly, one each from Germany, the US, Russia, and the UK. Meanwhile the UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said the vaccine will not be compulsory in the UK as that's not our tradition, though the health secretary has previously hinted it might become compulsory if take-up is below the level required to properly protect the population.

However, the CEO of Qantas, Austrialia's national airline and a major international carrier, has said in an interview with CNN that he expects his airline to make "no vax, no fly" a rule once the vaccines are widely available, and based on conversations with other industry figures he's expecting other major airlines to do the same.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/qantas-coronavirus-vaccination-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

Meanwhile the IATA, the international body that underpins most of the technical services and information exchange needed for the airline industry, is developing the IATA Trave Pass, to provide a digital passport for passengers to record vaccination and test data as well as other medical information.
https://www.iata.org/en/publications/travel-pass/

Obviously all of this will have a bearing on anyone wanting to travel internationally to UMD25 in Las Vegas in 2023, so am wondering how people feel about the new vaccines. Personally I'm all in favour and will be getting one (in the UK it'll be the Pfizer, Moderna, or Oxford, and most likely the Oxford) as soon as it becomes available. Expectation is it will be available free of charge from doctors' surgeries on the NHS, or for a small charge privately from pharmacies, in the same way the annual flu vaccine is.

I'm definitely pro-vaccine. Does anyone really want to go back to the days of polio? Or even measles?

And 'No Vax, No Fly' is a great rule. This should be expanded to no vax, no school, no going to the mall, no eating out, no going to the gym.

Anti-Vaxers shouldn't have the right to piggy-back onto my vaccines. Nor should they have the right to impose their qualms on me either directly by way of disease or indirectly via higher health care costs.

Absolutely. If we want life to go back to normal, we'll have to take this vaccine. And I'm positive that it will be safe and well tested for us to use.
IT won't make Covid go away forever but it will at least get it under control so that we can get back to our normal day-to-day lives

I agree. The rule should be no international travel unless you have an up to date vaccination certificate.

There is also a good argument for extending the requirement to major sporting and indoor venues making it safe to relax social distancing rules. Given that the vaccines are not 100% effective having unvaccinated people in crowded venues creates an unnecessary risk to the responsible majority. (The only exception I would consider is for the relatively small number of people who cannot take vaccines for health reasons. I heard a report that some types of antibiotics could provide limited protection which would be better than nothing).

I live in the UK and have relatives in the US. I'm hopeful that the really good news on vaccines means I will be able to safely visit them again next year as well as travel to other foreign destinations.

Alan

I voted "no" but only because there wasn't an option for "yes, after a while to see if it is safe and/or effective". If we didn't live in the middle of nowhere and work from home, we would seriously consider taking it as soon as it is available. As it is, we're pretty safe here with so little contact with others that we are not faced with the dilemma most people are.

Oh, and we got a puppy! One more good reason to stay home!

Madeline

I am pro vaccine when we know the side effects. Some of the companies had to stop working on the vaccine because the side effects were worse. I don't trust that we are not being told all the side effects of the vaccine and that all people are doing is talking about how great it is there will be a vaccine soon. No I am not one of those people that thinks vaccines cause down syndrome or anything like that. But I am not just going to accept that the pharmaceutical companies are telling us the truth. Keep in mind, the same companies developing the vaccine are the same companies that told Dr.'s that Oxy was 100% safe and not habit forming when they knew otherwise.

I have always been pro vaxine always had my daughter vaccinated the MMR even though she went on to be diagnosed with Autism and all the controversy surrounding that I wouldn't say that was the reason she was diagnosed because we have a family history and diagnosis of similar issue's not related to vaccines.

I do worry that as a front line worker I won't have any choice to have it but most vaccines have been tested for years and it does unnerve me alot .

Its another reason we are getting a fur baby and looking at investing in property rather than travel which is our passion

The whole MMR / Autism thing was phony, it was a money making scam. The (now disgraced and struck off) doctor who came up with it had a patent for a different, theree-separate-jab vaccination, one jab each for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. If he could discredit the standard MMR so people would use his instead, he stood to make millions, possibly even billions, from the royalty payments his patent would bring him. The supposed study that got published in The Lancet had a tiny sample size and was I gather almost totally unscientific. It should never have been published. The scam failed and he was ostracised and struck off, but the publicity, mixed with various conspiracy theories, caused a significant drop in vaccination rates, which is why measles, which had almost been eradicated, has returned as a killer disease.

Edit: Here is the BMJ report into the whole thing, there were actually multiple patents plus extracting money from the Legal Aid system involved.
https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258

Ive worked an vaccine development for a good chunk of my life and i find this is one of the few times where stages and trials and development are political and makes the R and D somewhat off putting because people that are or have been infected are now part of a group to be tried on around the world.

But I'm also working on crafting something with around 15,000 people will see by April what we come up with.

In 2 mouths their may be a vaccine that's prelimenary from the US government

I am working with people with Autism specially with severe form of this disorder. Is no evidence that it should be caused by some vaccine. Actually ASD is neuro developmental disorder which is not know till today how is caused. In past have been carried some researches if is it hereditary, genetic or what, but again there is no evidence for that, exists only theories.

So vaccination I think is absolutely ok and I can assure that it does not cause any mental disorder.

To the above by DM1 - Allan Joyce CEO of Qantas Australia - did say - NO JAB! NO FLY! - This is in response to another comments made by our chief medical heads of Government staff (CMO's). These people among others are Prof. Brendon Murphy (CMO), Prof. Greg Hunt (ACMO), and all the other top states medical advisors and health officials (SMO's) to many to name. This has to do with all state boarders being physically closed in Australia and all oversea flights have been cancelled since March 2020. If you do fly on the very few restricted flights, you must do 14 days of mandatory quarantine stay, (Hotels), in the state you land in (except WA - no flights or boarder crossings allowed). No exceptions to this rule, as this was the case with Ruby Princess which passengers were allowed to leave and did have the virus. This was Australia's first wave and the 2nd was caused by breaches in the quarantine sector, not by army, but by private security firms being used here in Vic by corrupt private companies and govt officials who saw this a quick buck. Due to the Army and other government services being used to contain the boarder restrictions. The guards in question had no PPE training or Vireo medical training and this is how it spread in Victoria, Australia.

I have more info to read in my replies - Forum - Stay Home - by MM

https://umd.net/forums/stay-home

"that's not our tradition" Oh FUCK Boris Johnson.
FUCK your traditions, FUCK your worthless unnecessary monarchy, FUCK nationalism,
FUCK culture. The fucking excuses (certain) humans come up with.

How about thinking in terms of quantifying PHYSICAL suffering and pain
and doing what minimizes suffering & pain as fairly as possible, BJ?

Excellent report, DungeonMasterOne!

That's because doing science is HARD,
harder than these shithead scammers can possibly even imagine.

Have to. Part of group that is most vulnerable to COVID. Will however give my shot away if some has more need of it than I do.

Been told that I am ridiculous but my best friend's asthma is worse than mine so she should have priority over me.

I will GLADLY take a shot in my arm over that horrible nasal swab shoved up my nasal cavity.
Had that done twice this year. First time needlessly: just because I was curious & our county
offered it for free. I couldn't say no to "free". Second time for a foot surgery that never happened.

Do you think they'll offer the vaccine in the form of a shot to the butt
for those of us who are into that sort of thing?

Honestly the very first time I heard of anti-vaxxers (about 2000)
I swore they did it because they were terrified of the stick of a needle,
NOT because of anything to do with what's in the vaccine.
So, initially, I DID have great sympathy for antivaxxers for that reason,
since when I was a child, I kicked and screamed in terror at the doctor's office
over being stuck with a needle. But, it's when antivaxxers came out pushing
PROVABLY FALSE bullshit that I lose sympathy for them.

This is why WAR must be declared not only against this virus but against
lack of universal healthcare

lack of universal basic income until you can logistically get people doing useful jobs
- yes - you can't just strand people, shut down their business, and then magically
expect & demand them to pay bills - without going into the specifics of which businesses
& which workers I do vs do not have sympathy for (which ones have little control vs those
who have control over their employment)

lack of funding for nanotechnology

The world needs alien-level nanotech to be able to locate where this virus is at all times.
Or any virus. Or bacterium.

And if you think fighting this war against Covid19 is hard,
wait until we get really serious about fighting Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)

It's not rushed though. The work the Covid-19 vaccines are based on has been under way for almost 20 years, since the SARS pandemic. That wasn't as bad and didn't affect as many people but it was a very similar coronavirus that caused it - the Covid stuff is based on tweaking and adjusting existing in-development RNA work.

It's also been tested on 20,000+ people so far with no ill-effects, so hardly untested.

Vaccines have been around for a long time. The benefits clearly outweigh costs.