> I would suggest reflecting on that, I do not think the things you are naming are unique.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree that it's neither unique, nor new, nor the first or last times we fucked things up. My pronouns are pessimistic/stoic/sleepy.
> mRNA vaccines were absolutely a breakthrough therapy.
...a "breakthrough" that was incorrectly touted a fix for the pandemic, that would also be used to cure all disease, etc... (Again, not by the researchers themselves, but by pretty much everyone else.)
In the end, it definitely bought time for the elderly (and unhealthy), until Omicron actually changed the game.
If we had not got this particular mutation "winning ticket", given the disappointing efficiency of mRNA vaccines on infection and transmission, I'm unfortunately convinced that we would still have to show proof of a recent vaccination to get a coffee. (And since I'm in a particularly bad mood, let's not talk about the long term societal effects of mandates and restrictions and penalization of "not blindly trusting your government", which will reveberate.)
At least, we learnt that "maaaaybe it's worth testing our medecines on the half of humanity that has a functioning uterus" [1], which is a "breakthrough discovery" that almost arrived _after_ nuclear fusion.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree that it's neither unique, nor new, nor the first or last times we fucked things up. My pronouns are pessimistic/stoic/sleepy.
> mRNA vaccines were absolutely a breakthrough therapy.
...a "breakthrough" that was incorrectly touted a fix for the pandemic, that would also be used to cure all disease, etc... (Again, not by the researchers themselves, but by pretty much everyone else.)
In the end, it definitely bought time for the elderly (and unhealthy), until Omicron actually changed the game.
If we had not got this particular mutation "winning ticket", given the disappointing efficiency of mRNA vaccines on infection and transmission, I'm unfortunately convinced that we would still have to show proof of a recent vaccination to get a coffee. (And since I'm in a particularly bad mood, let's not talk about the long term societal effects of mandates and restrictions and penalization of "not blindly trusting your government", which will reveberate.)
At least, we learnt that "maaaaybe it's worth testing our medecines on the half of humanity that has a functioning uterus" [1], which is a "breakthrough discovery" that almost arrived _after_ nuclear fusion.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/vaccine-trials-...