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I believe the incoming #COVID19 vaccines tend to be effective and safe. I also predict widespread vaccination campaigns will save lives. Though, I doubt vaccines will significantly shorten the timeline of the pandemic, which I predict to be around mid/late 2021 (± 6 months)
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I appreciate this stance may seem slightly counterintuitive. Though, it is primarily based on the two lines of evidence below.
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1. Even many of richest countries will fail to achieve high vaccination coverage before the peak of the pandemic will be largely over. Vaccinating people for #COVID19 throughout the world will take several years, if it ever happened.
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2. Immunisation by the incoming vaccines may be fairly easy for #SARSCoV2 to bypass. We already know about at least two major 'vaccine / monoclonal antibody escape mutations' that have been rising in frequency even before vaccination has started.
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#COVID19 would be most effectively made 'endemic' by a mix of infection and vaccination. Given the fairly short 'sterilising' immunisation period, many people will be vaccinated/infected multiple times. Though, successive infections are expected to be generally less severe.
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The scenario delineated in this thread is in line with the last three influenza pandemics (1957/1968/2009), where vaccines played a role in keeping mortality down in limited parts of the world but didn't make much of a difference globally.
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We are in a slightly better position with #COVID19 as vaccines are concerned, relative to past influenza pandemics. There is a real opportunity to keep mortality down, at least in rich countries, by focusing vaccination efforts towards some of the most 'at risk' in society.
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Some may believe that the arrival of vaccines has made the discussion about #COVID19 suppression vs. mitigation redundant. It hasn't really. What it does is to offer a far more palatable option than 'physical sheltering' to protect many of the most 'at-risk' in society.
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The #COVID19 pandemic is a highly complex problem. Complex problems don't tend to have straightforward solutions, they only offer tradeoffs, no easy ones.
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Pretending vaccines will make the problems we're facing go away in the short term is wishful thinking. Vaccines tweak and reshape our options how to deal with #COVID19, arguably for the better, but difficult decisions remain ahead of us and pretending otherwise may be foolish.
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