I wonder... can we have a civilized COVID discussion as things (hopefully) wind down?

Slippery said:

tuna55 said:

In reply to fusion66 :

<SNIP>

I’m not surprised of the confusion given the suboptimal messaging from public health officials over the past year. But, vaccinated people do not spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. Not even close. Here’s how it works…

Vaccines prevent infection in the first place

Let’s say a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person are standing next to each other and both are exposed to the same amount of virus for the same amount of time. An equal playing field. The virus then enters both of the people’s nasal passageway. What happens next depends on vaccination status:

<SNIP>

1. For the vaccinated person, the viral particles try to find host cells but the immune system (and particularly neutralizing antibodies) recognize the virus and quickly destroys it. Importantly, the virus is destroyed before entering host cells and, thus, cannot replicate. Because it can’t replicate, the vaccinated doesn’t become contagious. This phenomenon is called “sterilizing immunity”, which prevents infection from happening in the first place. Not everyone gets sterilizing immunity, but COVID19 vaccines help with approximately 50-75% reduction in initial infection risk.

This has a huge effect on transmission in the community. You cannot transmit an infection you never get.

<SNIP>

To Tuna or anyonelse that wants to chime in.

Let me preface this by saying that I am vaccinated and double boosted, as are all members of my family (wife and kids). I believe in vaccines, but I also believe that you should be able to choose what you want to do with your body, even if that will place my family and I at a higher risk.

With that being said, my wife got Covid from work. Given her office and the way it is staffed, she thinks she knows who she got it from. That person was vaccinated/double boosted as well. This happened during summer, my kids were not in school and neither have I been working.

I tested positive shortly after as well, along with the youngest of my kids (age 10). My other two kids, ages 13 and 15, never tested positive or showed symptoms. I know a few other people that got it as well. Our cases were mild and lasted about 3-4 days with a good week or two were we felt like we were living in the Twilight Zone.

Anyways, my question is how come we got it if we were vaccinated? You said that breakthrough cases are rare, as in people that work in hospitals and are exposed to a much higher viral load.

Is it because the virus completely changed by the time I got it and the vaccine was not effective then? I think after a certain time we can't say that breakthrough cases are rare.

It's a question which can't be answered without a lot more data. It's a combination of breakthrough cases (when you're recently vaccinated against a strain and that strasin still gets you sick), waning immunity over time, and mutations in variants (which have often been overlapping by wide margins of time during the pandemic).

I've tried to respond quickly to these to keep the thread on a healthy track, and I appreciate the discourse here and the thoughts you've all provided. I'm heading home and won't be able to check for a while. I hope I haven't come across as bullying or demanding here. It is not my intent to force my opinions on others.

jmabarone said:

You ever watch TV?  Have you seen the ads for the lawyers trying to get people to sign on to class action lawsuits because some medication or treatment didn't work?  Those aren't things that came out in the last 2 years.  How many FDA approved medications have been pulled off the shelves because they discovered massive side effects later on?  

We also don't know the long term side effects of multiple cases of COVID.

93EXCivic said:

jmabarone said:

You ever watch TV?  Have you seen the ads for the lawyers trying to get people to sign on to class action lawsuits because some medication or treatment didn't work?  Those aren't things that came out in the last 2 years.  How many FDA approved medications have been pulled off the shelves because they discovered massive side effects later on?  

We also don't know the long term side effects of multiple cases of COVID.

Hey thanks for this point. It's a really good point. This is not the risk of a vaccine vs zero risk. It's the risk of a vaccine versus the risk of catching a disease which is very dangerous.

tuna55 said:

Slippery said:

tuna55 said:

In reply to fusion66 :

<SNIP>

I’m not surprised of the confusion given the suboptimal messaging from public health officials over the past year. But, vaccinated people do not spread the virus as much as unvaccinated. Not even close. Here’s how it works…

Vaccines prevent infection in the first place

Let’s say a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person are standing next to each other and both are exposed to the same amount of virus for the same amount of time. An equal playing field. The virus then enters both of the people’s nasal passageway. What happens next depends on vaccination status:

<SNIP>

1. For the vaccinated person, the viral particles try to find host cells but the immune system (and particularly neutralizing antibodies) recognize the virus and quickly destroys it. Importantly, the virus is destroyed before entering host cells and, thus, cannot replicate. Because it can’t replicate, the vaccinated doesn’t become contagious. This phenomenon is called “sterilizing immunity”, which prevents infection from happening in the first place. Not everyone gets sterilizing immunity, but COVID19 vaccines help with approximately 50-75% reduction in initial infection risk.

This has a huge effect on transmission in the community. You cannot transmit an infection you never get.

<SNIP>

To Tuna or anyonelse that wants to chime in.

Let me preface this by saying that I am vaccinated and double boosted, as are all members of my family (wife and kids). I believe in vaccines, but I also believe that you should be able to choose what you want to do with your body, even if that will place my family and I at a higher risk.

With that being said, my wife got Covid from work. Given her office and the way it is staffed, she thinks she knows who she got it from. That person was vaccinated/double boosted as well. This happened during summer, my kids were not in school and neither have I been working.

I tested positive shortly after as well, along with the youngest of my kids (age 10). My other two kids, ages 13 and 15, never tested positive or showed symptoms. I know a few other people that got it as well. Our cases were mild and lasted about 3-4 days with a good week or two were we felt like we were living in the Twilight Zone.

Anyways, my question is how come we got it if we were vaccinated? You said that breakthrough cases are rare, as in people that work in hospitals and are exposed to a much higher viral load.

Is it because the virus completely changed by the time I got it and the vaccine was not effective then? I think after a certain time we can't say that breakthrough cases are rare.

It's a question which can't be answered without a lot more data. It's a combination of breakthrough cases (when you're recently vaccinated against a strain and that strasin still gets you sick), waning immunity over time, and mutations in variants (which have often been overlapping by wide margins of time during the pandemic).

Actually it can and is being answered. According to the CDC some vaccine effectiveness is as low as 8%, but the highest is 75% if you've had 4 doses and is been under 150 days since the last shot. 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-effectiveness

The vaccines aren't that effective at stopping the spread. Their big benefit is the possible reduction in severe illness and hospitalizations and death, though both still occur. 

tuna55 said:

 

I hear that last one a lot. It's not true that it was rushed in, and it's not true that it wasn't thoroughly tested. It is true that it hasn't been long term tested. Neither has your new car. Neither has basically any medicine you take outside of aspirin, ibuprofen, penecillin and tylenol. I see these same people stocking up on horse dewormer, and it's obvious that the argument wasn't presented as intellectually honest. You can't say that the Covid vaccine is untested and therefore potentially unsafe, and on the other hand happily stock up on horse dewormer from Tractor Supply. Before you say it, yes I actually know actual people who have done and said this exact thing.

You know that's a terrible argument.  I can say that the Covid vaccines were not thoroughly tested and were rushed in development because they absolutely were.   They have not recieved anything other than emergency use authorization from the FDA.  They were developed and "tested" in under a year.  Remember, Covid essentially hit our shores January 2020 (in small numbers) and Trump was vaccinated before he left office.  That's a year.  

How long does FDA approval generally take?  The ranges I have heard was 3-5 years best case scenario.  I'm not questioning the process that they went through to develop it.  I genuinely believe that everyone involved wanted to create a good effective vaccine for the populace.  I don't think that they cut corners, although I do think that if there were side effects or potential issues, they weighed heavily in favor of ensuring that the vaccine would be able to do the greatest good if it was released.  Maybe a few small populations could have issues, but the risks were worth ignoring.  Not faulting that either.  

Almost every car has been more tested than the Covid vaccines.  Not negligance on the part of the companies, just the nature of what was requested/needed.  

I don't think it is wise to group people that say dumb things with people that you are attempting to have a discussion with.  It can cloud your ability to be subjective.  

In reply to bobzilla :

Yeah I am surprised that is an argument. It is pretty clear from current data that the vaccine isn't that great at stopping the spread of new variants of the virus.

I would be interested to see how effective the vaccine is against the original virus still. I mean that would be academic still it is mutating so fast but how much of the loss of effectiveness is due to the mutations of the virus and how much is due to a natural loss of effectiveness.

Covid should not have been a political topic. It should have been unifying. But it is, because it was politicized from the very start. Even the name was changed from the Wuhan Virus due to political pressure, despite that naming after the place of origin has been common practice. Initially, most people were on board with shutting things down until we figured out what was going on. Once we learned more about the virus, the old adage "never let a good crisis go to waste" was quickly adopted. Many of the same politicians also got caught following the "rules for thee, not for me" philosophy. Lots of conflicting and dubious "science." The mask mandates were a joke. We knew early on how ineffective basic cloth coverings were. They were largely a placebo. I wouldn't be surprised if they did more harm than good, as they gave people a false sense of security. Still, I wore one. Not to protect myself, but to make other people feel better. If I was really concerned, I would have worn an N95. I was vaccinated, not to protect myself, but for others. People don't trust the data because many forms of data gathering had proven to be untrustworthy. The engineering examples above are not applicable. It wasn't measure twice, cut once. It was measure, and if you didn't get the measurement you wanted, you changed the ruler.  I'm a big believer in science. But I'm also smart enough to know that once you throw politics and money into the mix, the science can get muddy in a hurry. The vaccine was politicized. Before the election, many high ranking politicians publicly stated they would not trust "the other guy's" vaccine. When they won, if became "their vaccine" and was 100% safe with no possible side effects. Gee, I wonder where the mistrust came from. What should have happened...

"Both parties care deeply for the American people. We set aside our differences and worked together to produce a vaccine to fight this horrible virus. We expedited the process, and while this vaccine is not yet FDA approved, it's based off of proven methods and we believe the side effects to be minimal and the benefit for the vast majority of Americans far outweighs the risk." 

it also turns out that this scenario, and others like it, have been anticipated. There was a playbook put together well before Covid as to what the response should be for various grades of pandemics. While Covid is bad- it's on the light end of the pandemic spectrum mortality wise. Lots of thought and dollars went into the plan, which was promptly thrown out the window for the above mentioned reasons. 

Then you have an election that was heavily influenced by Covid policy. Stolen may be too strong of a word, but I can definitely understand why some would gravitate towards that word. The rules were changed in the 4th quarter of the game to benefit one team, and the refs were told to go take a break during the winning drive. May not have made a difference, but we'll never know for sure. And it gave a lot of people a legitimate reason to be angry, even if it did not affect the result. Most people who question Covid policy don't do it because they are uneducated or listen to an extremist on talk radio. They do so because the have been manipulated and lied to constantly. I sure hope that the general population has short memories and those in charge learn something the next time a pandemic rolls around, or we are in big trouble. 

jmabarone said:

tuna55 said:

 

I hear that last one a lot. It's not true that it was rushed in, and it's not true that it wasn't thoroughly tested. It is true that it hasn't been long term tested. Neither has your new car. Neither has basically any medicine you take outside of aspirin, ibuprofen, penecillin and tylenol. I see these same people stocking up on horse dewormer, and it's obvious that the argument wasn't presented as intellectually honest. You can't say that the Covid vaccine is untested and therefore potentially unsafe, and on the other hand happily stock up on horse dewormer from Tractor Supply. Before you say it, yes I actually know actual people who have done and said this exact thing.

You know that's a terrible argument.  I can say that the Covid vaccines were not thoroughly tested and were rushed in development because they absolutely were.   They have not recieved anything other than emergency use authorization from the FDA.  They were developed and "tested" in under a year.  Remember, Covid essentially hit our shores January 2020 (in small numbers) and Trump was vaccinated before he left office.  That's a year.  

How long does FDA approval generally take?  The ranges I have heard was 3-5 years best case scenario.  I'm not questioning the process that they went through to develop it.  I genuinely believe that everyone involved wanted to create a good effective vaccine for the populace.  I don't think that they cut corners, although I do think that if there were side effects or potential issues, they weighed heavily in favor of ensuring that the vaccine would be able to do the greatest good if it was released.  Maybe a few small populations could have issues, but the risks were worth ignoring.  Not faulting that either.  

Almost every car has been more tested than the Covid vaccines.  Not negligance on the part of the companies, just the nature of what was requested/needed.  

I don't think it is wise to group people that say dumb things with people that you are attempting to have a discussion with.  It can cloud your ability to be subjective.  

I'm sorry I maintain that argument is a good one. Those people stocking up on horse dewormer are a point that I started the thread with, that people are happy to take a ridiculous risk with zero data instead of taking a vaccine, which has been carefully and thoroughly studied and proven.

Where I sit is we don't know the long term effects of getting multiple cases of COVID and that worries me (far more then any potential long term effects of the vaccine). Pandemic burnout is a real thing and most people have largely stopped paying attention (myself included). As far as I can tell, the vaccine won't be able to prevent you from catching new variants of the virus but does largely prevent death or serious illness.

That brings up another bit of misdirection by public health officials.  "Vaccines will stop the spread" when there is evidence all around us that shows that they wouldn't.  Yes, they reduce risk of serious illness and hospitalization, not questioning that point.  Now it is acknowledged that "oh, we knew they wouldn't stop the spread."  

Maybe stop lying to us and we would trust you more.  

In reply to 93EXCivic :

And, like before, natural immunity is either ignored or proferred with "but its waning". Yes, it is, but much slower than the vaccines from the studies I am finding. Sadly most of those studies are being done outside the US. Many of us got the goods before the vaccine was released. Even then there were early questions as to its effect on those that had it. We chose to hold off and see. It took 22 months to get it the second time, to a much lesser degree. Many friends that we know have had it fully vaxed more than once in 6 months. While this may be anectdotal evidence to support my theory it seems to be playing out worldwide. Many nations with high vaccination rates are seeing some of their highest spikes in positivity rates. 

I'm not telling anyone not to get it. I believe it has good things to offer those at higher risk of severe illness and the elderly. But for a normal 20-50yo that has already had it? Not really a benefit. Forcing people to take the shot is not helpful and shaming people that havent is just stupid. I can spend the rest of the night finding all the studies I have been watching and reading to give you all to support everything I've stated, but if you are a believer it won't matter. 

jmabarone said:

That brings up another bit of misdirection by public health officials.  "Vaccines will stop the spread" when there is evidence all around us that shows that they wouldn't.  Yes, they reduce risk of serious illness and hospitalization, not questioning that point.  Now it is acknowledged that "oh, we knew they wouldn't stop the spread."  

Maybe stop lying to us and we would trust you more.  

But yet there are still people posting in this thread that they believe it stops the spread when it doesn't. No amount of facts can sway people ON EITHER SIDE of this argument. 

bobzilla said:

In reply to 93EXCivic :

And, like before, natural immunity is either ignored or proferred with "but its waning". Yes, it is, but much slower than the vaccines from the studies I am finding. Sadly most of those studies are being done outside the US. Many of us got the goods before the vaccine was released. Even then there were early questions as to its effect on those that had it. We chose to hold off and see. It took 22 months to get it the second time, to a much lesser degree. Many friends that we know have had it fully vaxed more than once in 6 months. While this may be anectdotal evidence to support my theory it seems to be playing out worldwide. Many nations with high vaccination rates are seeing some of their highest spikes in positivity rates.

I would question this part as to do with vaccination rates for sure. Is this due to those nations have a higher vaccination rate, being nations or regions that are more likely to have a higher population density or perform more testing? I mean there are quite a few factors that could play into that beyond vaccine takeup.

I have had the 2 original shots, the booster, had Covid in Feb 2021 then again last month after my wife picked it up at the National DAR convention.

Regarding the studies you mentioned, I'd be interested in reading. Do you where they were performed and which vaccine was studied?

There are only 2 things I know to contribute to this thread.

1. I have never had Covid, no idea why not, as I've been around many people that had it.  I'm just glad for whatever caused me to not catch it.

2. Any thread where one person has 40% of the posts is a thread where someone wants to prove a point.  I myself have been guilty of it, might want to take a step back.

bobzilla said:

I'm not telling anyone not to get it. I believe it has good things to offer those at higher risk of severe illness and the elderly. But for a normal 20-50yo that has already had it? Not really a benefit. Forcing people to take the shot is not helpful and shaming people that havent is just stupid. I can spend the rest of the night finding all the studies I have been watching and reading to give you all to support everything I've stated, but if you are a believer it won't matter. 

I'm guessing you don't want to link the studies because they're not reputable - all the scientific evidence I've seen so far points to vaccination giving longer-lasting protection than natural immunity through infection. Plus you don't have to roll the dice with COVID19 symptoms to gain it in the first place.

As for why vaccinated people appear to get infected more, maybe they're taking more risks? (although I should add that risk compensation theories have usually turned out to be wrong). Maybe some of the people who report being vaccinated are lying about it? Or, most likely, maybe because most people are now vaccinated so any random person who gets infected has only about a 1 in 3 chance of being unvaccinated?

tuna55 said:

 

I'm sorry I maintain that argument is a good one. Those people stocking up on horse dewormer are a point that I started the thread with, that people are happy to take a ridiculous risk with zero data instead of taking a vaccine, which has been carefully and thoroughly studied and proven.

Just because I maintain that my argument is good doesn't mean it is.  Let's break it down.  

Ivermectin:  When this all kicked off, what was the treatment?  Go home and rest.  Go to the hospital if it gets worse BUT ONLY GO IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO!  So people look at what others are doing.  Oh, Ivermectin (not horse dewormer) has been shown to work in some studies.  Oh, where can I get that?  Remember, no vaccines, no guidance from the medical community as a whole on what to do besides isolate yourself... So people start looking at alternatives. 

Perhaps the medical community could have said the treatments that have been mentioned earlier (Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, etc), but they didn't.  So people look for their own solutions.  Not saying it is brilliant but I understand the line of thought. 

Covid Vaccines have been carefully and thoroughly studied and proven:  Yes, they have been carefully studied.  No, they have not been thoroughly studied.  No, they have not been proven.  Yes, they were the best that we could come up with on such short notice.  Remember, Covid discovery to first jabs is 1 year.  I stand by the statement about a lack of knowledge about long term side effects.  These are the first mRNA vaccines.  Nobody really knows what is going to happen in 3-5 years with these things.  That's why parents (who have gotten the vaccines themselves) aren't getting their kids vaccinated.  

tuna55 said:

.... I see these same people stocking up on horse dewormer, and it's obvious that the argument wasn't presented as intellectually honest. You can't say that the Covid vaccine is untested and therefore potentially unsafe, and on the other hand happily stock up on horse dewormer from Tractor Supply.....

I know your point here is that they don't know that hydroxychloroquine is safe, but you don't really know that.  If they did any research (to your point, they are probably just listening to an influencer), they would quickly find that it is a very safe drug that has been giving to many millions of people (122nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 5 million prescriptions) as it is a very popular anti-malarial drug, among other things, and I believe is even safe for pregnant women to take.   Where the danger exists is in way over dosing on it (which is common for most drugs). 

But you do bring up a very important point as to why people are mistrusting.  Referring to hydroxychloroquine as a horse dewormer (which it commonly is) is deceptive at least.  It would be like referring to Enbrel (a red blood cell stimulator) as a "dog drug" since it is use in veterinary medicine if someone somehow got it from a vet.  It of course is wildly more used for humans (and sometimes cheating bicycle racers).  They are buying it as a dewormer because that is the only way they could get it (as mentioned, no way to know if they researched the safety).

https://www.drugs.com/hydroxychloroquine.html

Not implying BTW that HC is in anyway effective in combating COVID (which it almost certainly isn't), but it certainly should not be generally refered to as "horse dewormer" when used by humans.

Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955.[2] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.[5] In 2019, it was the 122nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 5 million prescriptions.[6][7]

Hydroxychloroquine has been studied for an ability to prevent and treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but clinical trials found it ineffective for this purpose and a possible risk of dangerous side effects.[8] Among studies that deemed hydroxychloroquine intake to cause harmful side effects, a publication by The Lancet was retracted due to data flaws.[9] The speculative use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 threatens its availability for people with established indications.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxychloroquine

bobzilla said:

In reply to 93EXCivic :

Thats the thing, its different for different people. Too many variables. Why do some have such a severe reaction when others don't? 

My theory, not proven and I'm not a virologist: This virus was going to claim X% of lives due to DNA coding. There was going to be a certain percentage of the population that would not survive it, much like the elderly and the flu season but to a much larger scale. We may have delayed it with the lockdowns and vaccines, but a certain portion of the population was going to become ill and sadly die. It sucks hard. But nature and life suck so its to be expected. 

I come to this theory looking at countries like Australia and New Zealand that had the harshest lock downs and highest vaccination rates. They had very few cases and deaths over the first 18 months while the US and other countries were seeing extremely high cases and deaths. Now that we are slowing down, their death rates are rising and spiking. I feel like the best we as humanity has done is to postpone the inevitable conclusion. 

That sort of comports with the "flatten the curve" logic.  

GameboyRMH said:

bobzilla said:

I'm not telling anyone not to get it. I believe it has good things to offer those at higher risk of severe illness and the elderly. But for a normal 20-50yo that has already had it? Not really a benefit. Forcing people to take the shot is not helpful and shaming people that havent is just stupid. I can spend the rest of the night finding all the studies I have been watching and reading to give you all to support everything I've stated, but if you are a believer it won't matter. 

I'm guessing you don't want to link the studies because they're not reputable - all the scientific evidence I've seen so far points to vaccination giving longer-lasting protection than natural immunity through infection. Plus you don't have to roll the dice with COVID19 symptoms to gain it in the first place.

As for why vaccinated people appear to get infected more, maybe they're taking more risks? (although I should add that risk compensation theories have usually turned out to be wrong). Maybe some of the people who report being vaccinated are lying about it? Or, most likely, maybe because most people are now vaccinated so any random person who gets infected has only about a 1 in 3 chance of being unvaccinated?

Don't be a dick. I already provided multiple studies for you. I'm tired and this computer sucks so you can go on with whatever reality you want to believe and can continue to belittle others all you want. 

jmabarone said:

Perhaps the medical community could have said the treatments that have been mentioned earlier (Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, etc), but they didn't.  So people look for their own solutions.  Not saying it is brilliant but I understand the line of thought. 

Covid Vaccines have been carefully and thoroughly studied and proven:  Yes, they have been carefully studied.  No, they have not been thoroughly studied.  No, they have not been proven.  Yes, they were the best that we could come up with on such short notice.  Remember, Covid discovery to first jabs is 1 year.  I stand by the statement about a lack of knowledge about long term side effects.  These are the first mRNA vaccines.  Nobody really knows what is going to happen in 3-5 years with these things.  That's why parents (who have gotten the vaccines themselves) aren't getting their kids vaccinated.  

The first mRNA vaccines were for SARS-CoV-1 and were tested years before the current pandemic, that's why they came out so quickly - it was basically just a matter of updating those vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. If the people who got them were going to turn into Thing monsters 5 years later (about as plausible as anything else happening 5 years later), it should've happened to those test subjects by now.

bobzilla said:

jmabarone said:

That brings up another bit of misdirection by public health officials.  "Vaccines will stop the spread" when there is evidence all around us that shows that they wouldn't.  Yes, they reduce risk of serious illness and hospitalization, not questioning that point.  Now it is acknowledged that "oh, we knew they wouldn't stop the spread."  

Maybe stop lying to us and we would trust you more.  

But yet there are still people posting in this thread that they believe it stops the spread when it doesn't. No amount of facts can sway people ON EITHER SIDE of this argument. 

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298
 

"vaccines don't stop the spread" is empirically an incorrect statement. Please gather data. 
 

what I think you're saying is vaccines don't stop the spread completely but in actually and depending on the study they reduce transmissibility by 20-50% which when combined with say an 80-90% vaccination rate would nearly eliminate the virus from circulation. That's kinda how the polio and amallpox vaccines worked.   They were any better than these from an effectiveness stand point 

bobzilla said:

In reply to 93EXCivic :

Thats the thing, its different for different people. Too many variables. Why do some have such a severe reaction when others don't? 

My theory, not proven and I'm not a virologist: This virus was going to claim X% of lives due to DNA coding. There was going to be a certain percentage of the population that would not survive it, much like the elderly and the flu season but to a much larger scale. We may have delayed it with the lockdowns and vaccines, but a certain portion of the population was going to become ill and sadly die. It sucks hard. But nature and life suck so its to be expected. 

I come to this theory looking at countries like Australia and New Zealand that had the harshest lock downs and highest vaccination rates. They had very few cases and deaths over the first 18 months while the US and other countries were seeing extremely high cases and deaths. Now that we are slowing down, their death rates are rising and spiking. I feel like the best we as humanity has done is to postpone the inevitable conclusion. 

I agree with part of that theory as unfortunately COVID is going to kill some people with various medical conditions and the elder with or without the vaccine.

But the overall death rate versus total population in Australia is .0005% (14,458 out of 25,690,000) whereas the US sits at .003% (1.05 million out of 329.5 million). To me that points more to the vaccine working to prevent serious death and illness even if they are going through a bit of a spike (probably due to burnout from the pandemic).

Fueled by Caffeine said:

bobzilla said:

jmabarone said:

That brings up another bit of misdirection by public health officials.  "Vaccines will stop the spread" when there is evidence all around us that shows that they wouldn't.  Yes, they reduce risk of serious illness and hospitalization, not questioning that point.  Now it is acknowledged that "oh, we knew they wouldn't stop the spread."  

Maybe stop lying to us and we would trust you more.  

But yet there are still people posting in this thread that they believe it stops the spread when it doesn't. No amount of facts can sway people ON EITHER SIDE of this argument. 

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298
 

"vaccines don't stop the spread" is empirically an incorrect statement. Please gather data. 
 

what I think you're saying is vaccines don't stop the spread completely but in actually and depending on the study they reduce transmissibility by 20-50% which when combined with say an 80-90% vaccination rate would nearly eliminate the virus from circulation. That's kinda how the polio and amallpox vaccines worked.   They were any better than these from an effectiveness stand point 

I mean Australia is at 84% of the population with all the shots and they recently went through a spike.

The article you linked said this.

“The main point of vaccines is not to do with preventing transmission,” says Anika Singanayagam, academic clinical lecturer in adult infectious disease at Imperial College London. “The main reasons for vaccines for covid-19 is to prevent illness and death.” Therefore, we shouldn’t be too disappointed that it’s still possible to pass on the virus while vaccinated, she says, “Damping down on transmission is not a particularly easy thing with omicron.”