Per a conversation with @nonsanaementis I want to do a little vaccine thread and also make a prediction.

I predict that in the late afternoon of Friday, October 30th, Trump's going to lie that a vaccine has passed all its trials and is going into production. This will be false.

Not only will it be a lie but it will be one of the few lies Trump tells which is not merely an exaggeration of his own warped perception of the world but something he genuinely knows to be untrue.

But he'll say it anyway in a last ditch attempt to get people to vote for him.

As I have said repeatedly here and elsewhere vaccines necessarily go through extensive trials. Even a fast-tracked vaccine must pass a number of regulatory hurdles before it may be approved.

AND THESE HURDLES NECESSARILY TAKE TIME.

This is not something that can be completed by some super heroic smarty pants with autism refusing to leave the lab until it's done and just mainlining java for weeks on end. It's not about solving a puzzle; it's about waiting to see if anyone develops adverse reactions.

Developing a vaccine does take time because chemical blah blah viral DNA, immune system blurpy bloo, but then AFTER all that you have to a.) make sure it doesn't also do something not great and b.) remains effective.

In regards to point a.):

for most vaccines the "adverse reaction," most people get is mild pain at the injection site. But in a very small percentage of individuals it can be more severe. Regardless, clinicians need to know about that before delivering the vaccine.

this particular virus also has a relatively long incubation period so ... this is again where I stress I'm a PALAEOpathologist ... but I dunno, maybe in this case the inoculation will also cause weirdness much later on than normal. This is a thing clinicians need to know.

Think of it this way, if you're designing this thing and you decide to take the risk that no adverse effects will occur after 24 hours of inoculation, that's a really good bet, but if you're wrong and say 1% of people have severe or even mild reactions say two weeks later ...

... and you've gone ahead and given this to the entire population then that's 32,800,000 people who will be back to the hospital two weeks after being inoculated.

That's somewhat overwhelming during a pandemic.

Given the history of vaccines it's a good bet, but not a safe one.

It's REALLY unlikely that you'll have adverse reactions that late though because that basically never happens, so let's look at b.):

Your immune system only remembers a thing so long. Sometimes you need a booster. We will not know that until we know it.

But let's pretend for a second that there was actually a vaccine just about ready to go. There isn't but let's pretend. And let's also pretend that it could actually be manufactured and distributed and everyone would get it. Again, lols, but let's pretend ...

... so we all get the vaccine and it works and has no adverse reactions and we party hardy in the streets hugging each other and oy it's so wonderful for the neurotypicals, but then ... someone starts coughing.

It would be a zombie apocalypse.

Part of the development of a vaccine is ensuring it's safe and lasts a reasonable amount of time such that we can get booster shots or whatever is needed to keep ourselves immune from the disease. There is not enough time for that to happen before Friday.

So, if Trump makes this announcement which, honestly the more I think about it I really think he will, it is going to be a lie, and a dangerous lie at that.

Guys, vaccines are good. But they are delivered to healthy demographics and entire populations so the standard is high.

We will not have a real vaccine until Spring of next year at the earliest. Trump is going to lie and while I know that's very "dog bites man," it is SUPER important we all know better than to buy into this particular one.