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> If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. That's not how R values work at all. Firstly

> If the R Naught is more than 1 then you don't get any benefit to vaccinating a population that isn't vulnerable. That's not how R values work at all. Firstly, an R value of 1.5 and an R value of 5 have wildly different outcomes in terms of controlling spread, and vaccines that can reduce R values can reduce spread even if the R value remains above 1. More to the point, though, "transmission is happening in vaccinated people" doesn't imply that the R value is above 1, and it doesn't look like you've provided any evidence that that's the case, nor does the fact that infections sometimes occur, in and of itself, suggest it.

swader999 5y ago
Look at Gibraltar's daily spike well after they acheived 99% full vaccination status on June 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/... Only lockdowns brought it back down which creates other problems around immune health in the population. (see NZ for example, RSV is clogging up the hospitals now with young kids who had degraded their immune systems the last year or so with all the hardcore lockdowns there)
- apendleton 5y ago
  That suggests that lockdowns and vaccination together work better than vaccination alone, which is not particularly surprising. It seems, though, like you're suggesting that that means the vaccinations did nothing, which doesn't follow. It might well be that the case counts would have been twice as high if nobody had been vaccinated (or, who knows, ten times), and maybe some percentage of those additionally infected people would have died, or suffered long-term health outcomes. There's no way to know what the appropriate counterfactual is from this data alone.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Obviously lockdowns decrease transmission. But they make fragile immune systems. There's 200 other respiratory virus out there that we need constant exposure to or our immunity to them wanes. Then you get NZ which right now is overrunning their hospitals with children inflicted with severe RSV which never really happened in the pre-lockdown world. And I agree vaccination even with this leaky vaccine is appropriate for vulnerable groups bit it creates a shit storm of hurt down the road when you apply it to an entire population and in the context of an easily mutating virus. See the chicken story: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m... Applying it to a hard to mutate virus and the entire population makes total sense - see polio!
- scythe 5y ago
  Gibraltar isn't an island in the middle of the ocean. It's a tiny peninsula attached to the Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion. Many Gibraltarians interact with Spaniards on a daily basis. And indeed, the spike in Gibraltar cases coincides exactly with a much larger spike in cases in Spain: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain
  - swader999 5y ago
    Fair point but the fact remains that transmission is occurring between vaccinated persons. Nobody is disputing this. Israel is one of the higher vaccinated populations and they're at R1.1 as of today.

swader999 5y ago

Look at Gibraltar's daily spike well after they acheived 99% full vaccination status on June 1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/#graph-cases-daily https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/gibraltar/... Only lockdowns brought it back down which creates other problems around immune health in the population. (see NZ for example, RSV is clogging up the hospitals now with young kids who had degraded their immune systems the last year or so with all the hardcore lockdowns there)

apendleton 5y ago
That suggests that lockdowns and vaccination together work better than vaccination alone, which is not particularly surprising. It seems, though, like you're suggesting that that means the vaccinations did nothing, which doesn't follow. It might well be that the case counts would have been twice as high if nobody had been vaccinated (or, who knows, ten times), and maybe some percentage of those additionally infected people would have died, or suffered long-term health outcomes. There's no way to know what the appropriate counterfactual is from this data alone.
- swader999 5y ago
  Obviously lockdowns decrease transmission. But they make fragile immune systems. There's 200 other respiratory virus out there that we need constant exposure to or our immunity to them wanes. Then you get NZ which right now is overrunning their hospitals with children inflicted with severe RSV which never really happened in the pre-lockdown world. And I agree vaccination even with this leaky vaccine is appropriate for vulnerable groups bit it creates a shit storm of hurt down the road when you apply it to an entire population and in the context of an easily mutating virus. See the chicken story: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m... Applying it to a hard to mutate virus and the entire population makes total sense - see polio!
scythe 5y ago
Gibraltar isn't an island in the middle of the ocean. It's a tiny peninsula attached to the Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion. Many Gibraltarians interact with Spaniards on a daily basis. And indeed, the spike in Gibraltar cases coincides exactly with a much larger spike in cases in Spain: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain
- swader999 5y ago
  Fair point but the fact remains that transmission is occurring between vaccinated persons. Nobody is disputing this. Israel is one of the higher vaccinated populations and they're at R1.1 as of today.