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No you aren’t. A vaccine isn’t 100% effective. So say it prevents 9/10 COVID infections. If you are in an area where your normal probability of encountering an
by bart_spoon 5y ago
No you aren’t. A vaccine isn’t 100% effective. So say it prevents 9/10 COVID infections. If you are in an area where your normal probability of encountering an infectious level of virus is say 1/100, then your chances are 1/1000 of catching COVID. But if your local level of transmission is higher, so that your chance of contracting COVID over some time horizon is say 1/10, then your chances of getting ill is now 1/100.
And this all assumes that the vaccination works equally well for everyone. The effectiveness rates are and average. There will be people for whom it is highly effective, and others who get the vaccine who don’t get much protection at all.
It also ignores the reality of mutation rates. Mutations will happen no matter what, but the rate at which they occur is dependent on how many people are getting sick. So even if a vaccine offers protection now, if half the population is not vaccinated, and the virus is raging amongst them, then the chances of the virus developing a mutation that increases severity, or evades existing vaccine immunity, is much higher.
So the reality is that no, being protected is not a simple matter of an individual choosing to or not to get vaccinated. It’s community based. This isn’t unique for COVID either. It’s been true for every disease we’ve ever vaccinated against.
- daenz 5y agoIt's disturbing to me that depending on what argument is being made, the vaccines are both highly effective and simultaneously not effective enough. It doesn't get to be both when it's convenient.
- bart_spoon 5y agoWhy is it disturbing? Can both not be true?
- rsynnott 5y agoBoth those things are true, though. In fact, both are true of most vaccines that are actually in use; perfect vaccines are rare.
- daenz 5y agoPlease explain how something "is X" and "is not X" at the same time, without changing the definition of X between assertions, and without referring to quantum superposition.
- ghaff 5y agoIt seems obvious that many medical treatments/pre-treatments clearly lead to generally good outcomes (or are at least better than the untreated case) while many of them are still less effective or have more side effects than we would like. We can say the same thing in many domains. Modern car safety has improved a lot and makes cars from a few decades ago look like deathtraps in comparison. But way too many people still die on roads so we're constantly trying to make improvements.
- daenz 5y agoThat's a long way of saying that you're changing the definition of X between assertions. "Effective" doesn't mean the same thing in both contexts.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y agoVaccines are highly, but not perfectly, effective. The definition is the same, it's the adjective that's changing. For true immunity without anyone else needing to be vaccinated they'd need to be perfectly effective. Since they're not, more of the community needs to be vaccinated. The less effective they are (or the more widespread or infectious the virus is) the larger the proportion of the population that needs to be vaccinated becomes.
- daenz 5y agoIf you have the polio vaccine, you basically cannot get polio and have lifelong immunity. That's an effective vaccine. It doesn't require everyone else to get frequent booster shots. The current covid vaccine does not measure up to the polio vaccine.