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It'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

• bart_spoon 5y ago
  Why is it disturbing? Can both not be true?
• rsynnott 5y ago
  Both those things are true, though. In fact, both are true of most vaccines that are actually in use; perfect vaccines are rare.
  • daenz 5y ago
    Please 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 ago
      It 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 ago
        That'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 ago
          Vaccines 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 ago
            If 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.