https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02054-z
Vaccination rates in the US have been abysmal by developed world status, precisely because so many of you don't think vaccination works. It does work to dramatically slow spreading, but only if enough people take it up.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...
The first study finds that "The SAR [secondary attack rate] in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals" and "Fully vaccinated individuals with delta variant infection had a faster (posterior probability >0·84) mean rate of viral load decline (0·95 log10 copies per mL per day) than did unvaccinated individuals with pre-alpha (0·69), alpha (0·82), or delta (0·79) variant infections." (The study did not determine a meaningful impact on peak viral load and on the SAR in households when the index case was vaccinated.)
The second link is a letter that reiterates the fact that vaccinated index cases are just as likely to infect other household members and concludes with "It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures", which makes sense, but does not mean spread
When you say "which is evident just by looking around what's going on everywhere", it's important to point out that we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible than previous ones, so we can't compare the numbers like-for-like.
> It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission
You're going to have to dumb it down for me as to how this doesn't refer to spread.
> we're now dealing with a variant that is significantly more transmissible
And yes, agreed. Many are still focused on data from the previous variants though, whereas the thinking will need to change.
Not downplaying anything here. Reducing the symptoms is great. But interesting also to not that we don't even knows why it does that:
> The reason for the efficacy of the new mRNA vaccines is not clear.
But the virus is endemic and vaccines will not stop it from being caught by everybody at some point.
You can't lockdown the virus away. You can't stop the spread by canceling flights either. Just seems like awful policymaking driven by virtue signaling.
Covid is here forever, and that's life.
I fully expect to contract the virus at some point, and that's fine. I'm well protected by vaccination and the rate of propagation in the country is moderate enough that the hospitals aren't being overwhelmed by huge surges in infections and deaths any more.
Slowing down and limiting the impact of the virus doesn't stop it, correct, but it does massively reduce the damage it causes. That is very much worth doing, as the experience here in the UK clearly shows.
Did the stricter lockdowns make a difference in the end?
In places where hospitals were under capacity, deaths were significantly lower. Germany is a good example of this.
Overwhelmed healthcare systems, by comparison, saw lots more deaths.
Once it escaped Wuhan the goal was no longer to contain, but to control and soften the impact.
Plenty of people live their whole lives without catching smallpox or polio. We have/can develop effective vaccines for COVID. Why should it be different?
Not all viruses are the same, and sarscov2 is much more like cold/flu than polio.
Specifically, saracov2 has reservoirs in animals. Unless you had an effective vaccine that also works for cats, dogs, deer etc and the ability to actually deploy it (think wild deer all over the US), it’s here to stay.
Good thing we didn't take that attitude with smallpox. Or polio. We have eradicated disease. It's not like we've never done this before.
There's something called proportionate response. Personally I think policymakers should consider the actual pros and cons and the weight of them, rather than virtue signal as if everybody can be saved from every ailment, and acting as if second order effects don't exist.
We also could have locked down every winter to save people from dying due to flu. Why do you think we didn't do that before, when it could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives? Why don't we wear masks 24/7 to protect from flu?
Vaccination stopped smallpox and polio. Failure at Zero Covid is the result of poor, anti-realistic policies and attitudes - like yours, for example.
It's not because it's impossible, either economically or scientifically.
Vaccination did not stop measles or whooping cough, and has not even reduced their spread (only their symptoms) despite decades of availability.
Both of their vaccines are leaky - just like the Covid vaccine.
