> I would really love to have someone summarize how we "oversaw" Japan and Germany as opposed to Afghanistan.
Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, bad as they were, still had traditions associated with modern civilization. After the war, the infrastructure was devastated, but they had what economists refer to as "human capital"-- experienced engineers, miners, farmers, architects, people in all construction trades, etc. They had the knowledge and the desire to rebuild, and with the Marshall Plan, the money to do it.
The Taliban doesn't want to build/rebuild Afganistan. They want it to remain firmly in the 7th century, albeit with modern weapons. There is certainly human capital in Afganistan, but they face a real uphill battle.
Years ago, I listened to the G. Gordon Liddy radio show. The most hilarious incident was when he had the famous political humorist Mark Russell on his show. Russell was in-studio and said something like, "Hey, you sent me this keyboard". Liddy, totally straight, said that they wanted him to play some pieces (Russell sang and played as part of his act) and since their studio was the size of a broom closet, they had to find one that fit and they sent it to Russell to make sure it was good enough.
Then Russell says something like "You know what my first thought was at getting a piano from G. Gordon Liddy?". "It was, is one of the keys wired to a stick of dynamite?". Liddy roared with laughter.
(You had to see the right cartoons as young person to appreciate this one).
Answering my own question, this would be the first two volumes of William Manchester's "The Last Lion", a comprehensive biography of Winston Churchill.
The math doesn't look too good, at least in the US.
There are currently about 100,000 vaccinations a day in the US. Ignoring the vaccines that need two doses, vaccinating 300 million people at that rate will take 3,000 days = 100 months = 8.3 years. At 1 million vaccinations/day, we're still looking at 300 days = 10 months. Logistics is not my thing, but a tenfold increase in vaccations may be a little optimistic. Better than an infinite wait, though.
I got a robocall from my regular pharmacy the other day, telling me that they would be involved in distributing covid vaccines "soon".
So I am definitely going along with the main idea about acting as if everyone I know (or run into on the street) has tested positive.
Yeah, I'm expecting it to step up significantly soon. I keep seeing people doing back of the envelope calculations to determine how long it will take to vaccinate everyone at the current rate, but it's pretty obvious that it's not going to just continue at the current rate.
It's a huge missed opportunity that we weren't better prepared from the get go, given we've had all year to get ready, but it will get better.
There are many working on HIV vaccines. The virus mutates so fast that all previous attempts have failed. I wish them luck, but I'm not confident that it is possible. Time will tell.
I don't think that's the issue. With any virus, your immune system grows countermeasures exponentially (memory t-cells, antibodies, protein complements) to stop it. These stick around after the virus is gone. It's an immune system "memory"
In another infection, your cells still get infected, but the infection is just stopped very quickly. HIV has inscription and reverse transcription enzymes in it, so it can actually glue its sequence into your DNA. It changes your DNA enough to replicate it, but not enough that your cells change their structure so your immune system can't recognize them as infected (and those changes can cause your immune system to fail over time: AIDS).
Even if your body is primed to deal with HIV infections, if the infection happens, it's already too late.
I'm not sure who antiviral drugs like PREP work, but you'd need something like that permanently in your system.
Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, bad as they were, still had traditions associated with modern civilization. After the war, the infrastructure was devastated, but they had what economists refer to as "human capital"-- experienced engineers, miners, farmers, architects, people in all construction trades, etc. They had the knowledge and the desire to rebuild, and with the Marshall Plan, the money to do it.
The Taliban doesn't want to build/rebuild Afganistan. They want it to remain firmly in the 7th century, albeit with modern weapons. There is certainly human capital in Afganistan, but they face a real uphill battle.