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Conversely, we can make the same argument in the opposite direction with the example of Seychelles, which in spite of the highest vaccination level in the world

Conversely, we can make the same argument in the opposite direction with the example of Seychelles, which in spite of the highest vaccination level in the world, is still seeing significant growth in cases: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56992121 Apparently they're using 40% Astra Zeneca, 60% Sinopharm; hopefully the issue is simply the latter being ineffective. But as all the success stories with vaccination have also had very significant numbers of deaths with covid, we may need significant levels of natural immunity in conjunction with vaccine immunity to actually get cases to decline.

TheGigaChad 5y ago
The Seychelles are using Chinese junk.
tialaramex 5y ago
I don't see how anywhere could get to count as a "success story with vaccination" under your criteria while also not having "significant numbers of deaths with covid" and so I don't think you end up with a meaningful observation. New Zealand had zero community cases without vaccination, during 2021 its vaccination programme has only covered some front line workers and very high risk people, and it still has zero community cases. Is that "success"? Is it "not success" ? How would you tell? Whereas in my own country about two thirds of adults have had at least one jab, but still people are dying every single day from COVID-19, just much fewer than an the height of the pandemic here. Is that a success? Not a success? One of the reasons New Zealand was so slow? With zero cases they had no reason to do Emergency Authorization. So they didn't. The Pfizer vaccine they picked got the full (albeit accelerated) approval process that any other medicine would get. This behaviour would be crazy in a country like the US with thousands dying, but it made sense in a country where most citizens have negligible risk day-to-day.
- petertodd 5y ago
  > I don't see how anywhere could get to count as a "success story with vaccination" under your criteria I think you're reading my comment incorrectly. I'm not promoting a criteria. I'm just stating the facts: we may find out that vaccines alone simply can't stop covid from infecting - and maybe even killing - large numbers of people. Obviously, if that is true to a sufficient degree, lockdown may prove to have been pointless. > How would you tell? New Zealand will most likely find out how successful their vaccination program was when they open their borders to the rest of the world.
timr 5y ago
> A third of the active cases involved people who had had two vaccine doses, the country's news agency said. > The rest had either had a single dose or were unvaccinated. So ~66% of the cases were from partially or unvaccinated people.
DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
The AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines have similar efficacy: they're about 80% effective at preventing symptoms. They're even more effective at preventing serious illness and death. The Seychelles is still 40% unvaccinated. Even people who are vaccinated have some chance of getting infected, though if they get infected, their chance of showing symptoms is lower, and their chance of ending up in the hospital is much lower. It looks like the people testing positive in the Seychelles are mostly unvaccinated, and that the people ending up in the hospital are even more likely to be unvaccinated. But there's not enough information in the BBC article to judge just how effective the vaccines have been in the Seychelles. The BBC article does contain one falsehood: > In April, China's top disease control official said the efficacy of the country's Covid vaccines was low, although he later insisted his comments had been misinterpreted. George Gao did not say this. He gave a talk at a conference on vaccines which was blatantly misconstrued by a "researcher" at an American think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. That misrepresentation then got spread by the media. All George Gao actually said was that researchers should consider ways of increasing the efficacy of vaccines that have lower efficacy. He didn't name any specific vaccine or any specific country. He proposed the same sorts of measures that are being considered for other vaccines, such as the AstraZeneca shot: delaying the second dose, mixing vaccine doses, etc. This got twisted into an "admission" that Chinese vaccines have low efficacy. It's too bad to see that the BBC is still repeating this false claim, weeks later.
- cetiniz 5y ago
  It would be easier believing you if you didn't spend all your time on this site defending China...
  - aeyes 5y ago
    Just have a look at the (non China) data from a real world Sinovac vaccination campaign yourself: https://www.minsal.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Effectiveness-of-the-inactivated-CoronaVac-vaccine-against-SARS-CoV-2-in-Chile.pdf https://www.minsal.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Effectivene... I see 67% effectiveness of preventing symptomatic cases for Sinovac. I'm not sure where the 80% comes from, they could be talking about AstraZeneca.

TheGigaChad 5y ago

The Seychelles are using Chinese junk.

tialaramex 5y ago

I don't see how anywhere could get to count as a "success story with vaccination" under your criteria while also not having "significant numbers of deaths with covid" and so I don't think you end up with a meaningful observation. New Zealand had zero community cases without vaccination, during 2021 its vaccination programme has only covered some front line workers and very high risk people, and it still has zero community cases. Is that "success"? Is it "not success" ? How would you tell? Whereas in my own country about two thirds of adults have had at least one jab, but still people are dying every single day from COVID-19, just much fewer than an the height of the pandemic here. Is that a success? Not a success? One of the reasons New Zealand was so slow? With zero cases they had no reason to do Emergency Authorization. So they didn't. The Pfizer vaccine they picked got the full (albeit accelerated) approval process that any other medicine would get. This behaviour would be crazy in a country like the US with thousands dying, but it made sense in a country where most citizens have negligible risk day-to-day.

petertodd 5y ago
> I don't see how anywhere could get to count as a "success story with vaccination" under your criteria I think you're reading my comment incorrectly. I'm not promoting a criteria. I'm just stating the facts: we may find out that vaccines alone simply can't stop covid from infecting - and maybe even killing - large numbers of people. Obviously, if that is true to a sufficient degree, lockdown may prove to have been pointless. > How would you tell? New Zealand will most likely find out how successful their vaccination program was when they open their borders to the rest of the world.

timr 5y ago

> A third of the active cases involved people who had had two vaccine doses, the country's news agency said. > The rest had either had a single dose or were unvaccinated. So ~66% of the cases were from partially or unvaccinated people.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago

The AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines have similar efficacy: they're about 80% effective at preventing symptoms. They're even more effective at preventing serious illness and death. The Seychelles is still 40% unvaccinated. Even people who are vaccinated have some chance of getting infected, though if they get infected, their chance of showing symptoms is lower, and their chance of ending up in the hospital is much lower. It looks like the people testing positive in the Seychelles are mostly unvaccinated, and that the people ending up in the hospital are even more likely to be unvaccinated. But there's not enough information in the BBC article to judge just how effective the vaccines have been in the Seychelles. The BBC article does contain one falsehood: > In April, China's top disease control official said the efficacy of the country's Covid vaccines was low, although he later insisted his comments had been misinterpreted. George Gao did not say this. He gave a talk at a conference on vaccines which was blatantly misconstrued by a "researcher" at an American think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. That misrepresentation then got spread by the media. All George Gao actually said was that researchers should consider ways of increasing the efficacy of vaccines that have lower efficacy. He didn't name any specific vaccine or any specific country. He proposed the same sorts of measures that are being considered for other vaccines, such as the AstraZeneca shot: delaying the second dose, mixing vaccine doses, etc. This got twisted into an "admission" that Chinese vaccines have low efficacy. It's too bad to see that the BBC is still repeating this false claim, weeks later.

cetiniz 5y ago
It would be easier believing you if you didn't spend all your time on this site defending China...
- aeyes 5y ago
  Just have a look at the (non China) data from a real world Sinovac vaccination campaign yourself: https://www.minsal.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Effectiveness-of-the-inactivated-CoronaVac-vaccine-against-SARS-CoV-2-in-Chile.pdf https://www.minsal.cl/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Effectivene... I see 67% effectiveness of preventing symptomatic cases for Sinovac. I'm not sure where the 80% comes from, they could be talking about AstraZeneca.