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> If you peer deeper, you’ll generally find this: The vaccinated remain substantially protected against serious illness or death, but the unvaccinated are enter
by AndrewBissell 5y ago
> If you peer deeper, you’ll generally find this: The vaccinated remain substantially protected against serious illness or death, but the unvaccinated are entering the hospital and dying at very high rates indeed, as if to compensate .... If this is just Delta being more dangerous, then we would expect countries with lower vaccination rates to be enduring truly staggering mortality right now, but they are not. In heavily vaccinated countries, Delta is raging with a rare fury among the unvaccinated, but in lesser-vaccinated countries it is doing nothing unusual. This means that the efficacy statistics are broadly unreliable. The exact reasons don’t really matter: Either the vaccines have the power to change the whole picture, or they don’t.
- pbronez 5y agoPerhaps the unvaccinated people in low-vaccination countries are unvaccinated due to low vaccine supply, and thus take non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI: masks, social distancing) seriously, while the holdouts in high-vaccine countries have opted out by choice and belligerently disregard NPI, causing the disease to run wild through their communities.
- AndrewBissell 5y agoJapan is a big counterexample to this hypothesis. Sky-high compliance with the NPIs which are supposed to help reduce transmission, and also lots of transmission happening.
- yyyk 5y ago* Just about every significant mutation has arisen in a mostly unvaccinated country. The Delta mutation was identified in India. * The missing variable is looking at the restrictions each country imposes. Israel and the UK are almost fully open as are parts of the US. Less vaccinated countries kept their restrictions.
- deorder 5y agoWhen the Delta variant was identified most countries had not or had just started their vaccination program.
- jasonlaramburu 5y ago>If this is just Delta being more dangerous, then we would expect countries with lower vaccination rates to be enduring truly staggering mortality right now Isn't this exactly what we are seeing? Mexico is among the lowest-vaccinated countries in the western hemisphere and leads the world with a 7.7% case fatality rate. Compare this to <2% for most developed, well-vaccinated countries. The African countries have by far the lowest vaccination rates in the world, but it's debatable whether their record-keeping on mortality is remotely accurate.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoYou'd need to factor in age and possibly some other lifestyle factors. Africa's poplation is markedly younger, which given how covid death rates are distributed can have a big effect.
- jasonlaramburu 5y agoSure, but Mexico has a younger population than the US and over 4X the case fatality rate.