The vaccinations both reduce the likelihood that you will get COVID, and the likelihood that you will end up requiring hospitalization. For example, while the I

The vaccinations both reduce the likelihood that you will get COVID, and the likelihood that you will end up requiring hospitalization. For example, while the Israeli study in another HN article found that two shots of the Pfizer vaccine is 39-41% effective against infection of the Delta strain, it is 91% effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization. The goal is to reduce the load on the healthcare system. Expanding ICU capacity to always support COVID peak would be expensive, both from the infrastructure and staffing perspectives. Since the Delta variant is making kids sick, and we don't have a vaccine for kids who are 12 and under yet, we're going to see more kids end up in the ICU. Also, the Delta variant is 2-3x as transmissible as the COVID strains we've seen before. The claims that vaccines put evolutionary pressure on the virus to create more virulent strains don't seem that credible when you consider India is seeing new strains develop with a 6% vaccination rate. A rebuttal would be that we should get vaccinated so we don't die while taking up scarce resources for no real reason.