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I know it’s blasphemy to question the vaccines, but when they wane in effectiveness after 3 months and don’t prevent transmission much at all, surely the strate

I know it’s blasphemy to question the vaccines, but when they wane in effectiveness after 3 months and don’t prevent transmission much at all, surely the strategy and messaging has to change? Vulerable people should be getting their boosters like clockwork, but the real world data completely changes the equation as to whether you should vaccinating under 25s (to pick an arbitrary cutoff). Downvotes in 3, 2, 1....

pif 5y ago
I think everybody accepts it as a fact that polio vaccine never gave any advantage concerning, for example, influenza. Then, why would we expect that a vaccine against the original strain of the Covid 19 virus works as well against a new variant?
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Polio and influenza are completely different viruses. SARS-CoV-2 variants are much more closely related. They aren’t just coronaviruses or even SL (SARS like) but more narrowly similar than that. Should that matter? I’m not sure - but it is a difference relative to the polio/influenza example.
throwaway894345 5y ago
I'm not a partisan, so I won't charge you with blasphemy. :) However... > don’t prevent transmission much at all Where does this come from? I'd previously heard that these vaccines do a pretty good job of curbing transmission. Or rather, a number like 30% efficacy (of preventing transmission) is really good for vaccines.
- lambdaba 5y ago
  I'm not sure this is the right number. I have read the initial results for one of the vaccines (I think it was from Pfizer) and with my, admittedly cursory and layman reading of the data, the reduction of transmission in vaccinated vs unvaccinated households wasn't at all dramatic, something like 1.5x for some cohorts. And this was with "freshly" vaccinated, post 2 weeks after vaccination (remember, 2 weeks post vaccination susceptibility to infection is increased).
- dmajirb 5y ago
  > 30% efficacy (of preventing transmission) is really good for vaccines. Seriously? If you were to double that number, such a poor efficacy rate (e.g. 60%) would not even be worthy of classification as a “vaccine” per standards prior to 2019. Truth is this drug should never have been classified as a “vaccine” in the first place, but scientific standards took the backseat as fear and panic overruled. The need for having a “vaccine solution” was so paramount that we turned a blind eye to any red flags and crucified anyone who pointed out the obviously concerning facts about the Covid vaccine solution such as 1/ it was developed in less than a week, 2/ development was led by a company with zero prior successful products launched ever, 3/ used technology never been used at scale (let alone universally) 4/ all profit-driven biotech/pharma companies willing to participate were offered free money AND complete protection from ANY liability resulting from the ‘vac’ granted by .gov.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
The issue is more complex than that. Imagine you are responsible for the lives of millions of citizens. You will probably do whatever you can to minimize the risk (of transmission, severe cases, deaths). For people in charge, the most powerful tool today is the vaccine as there is no universal 100%-efficient cure yet. They will encourage everyone to vaccinate as this is basically the only thing they can do, in spite of its efficiency being much lower than expected. The alternatives are limiting various freedoms of citizens up to extreme forms like in Australia.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- horns4lyfe 5y ago
  This is not some binary “vaccinate everyone or take away freedoms choice”. And politicians are not our parents, they are not responsible for the lives of millions. They have limited roles on our lives that we elect them to; “taking care of me and making sure I’m healthy” is not their role, it’s mine.
  - nomorewords 5y ago
    I think this is the "American" way of looking at it and does not really represent what people think in the western world.
acdha 5y ago
> when they wane in effectiveness after 3 months and don’t prevent transmission much at all Two things to consider: “wane” is not the same as “dropping to 0” — the protections against severe cases have been shown to remain substantial even if it's not 100% — and “prevent transmission” in this case was referring to people who live in the same household, which is by far the hardest situation in which to prevent spread since that's a significant amount of time sharing air without masks. A better question would be things like how much vaccinations prevent spread from shorter / masked contexts such as transit, school, work, shopping, etc. — similar to how we might not conclude that a bulletproof vest is useless because it can't handle sustained fire from a machine gun.

pif 5y ago

I think everybody accepts it as a fact that polio vaccine never gave any advantage concerning, for example, influenza. Then, why would we expect that a vaccine against the original strain of the Covid 19 virus works as well against a new variant?

throwawaysea 5y ago
Polio and influenza are completely different viruses. SARS-CoV-2 variants are much more closely related. They aren’t just coronaviruses or even SL (SARS like) but more narrowly similar than that. Should that matter? I’m not sure - but it is a difference relative to the polio/influenza example.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I'm not a partisan, so I won't charge you with blasphemy. :) However... > don’t prevent transmission much at all Where does this come from? I'd previously heard that these vaccines do a pretty good job of curbing transmission. Or rather, a number like 30% efficacy (of preventing transmission) is really good for vaccines.

lambdaba 5y ago
I'm not sure this is the right number. I have read the initial results for one of the vaccines (I think it was from Pfizer) and with my, admittedly cursory and layman reading of the data, the reduction of transmission in vaccinated vs unvaccinated households wasn't at all dramatic, something like 1.5x for some cohorts. And this was with "freshly" vaccinated, post 2 weeks after vaccination (remember, 2 weeks post vaccination susceptibility to infection is increased).
dmajirb 5y ago
> 30% efficacy (of preventing transmission) is really good for vaccines. Seriously? If you were to double that number, such a poor efficacy rate (e.g. 60%) would not even be worthy of classification as a “vaccine” per standards prior to 2019. Truth is this drug should never have been classified as a “vaccine” in the first place, but scientific standards took the backseat as fear and panic overruled. The need for having a “vaccine solution” was so paramount that we turned a blind eye to any red flags and crucified anyone who pointed out the obviously concerning facts about the Covid vaccine solution such as 1/ it was developed in less than a week, 2/ development was led by a company with zero prior successful products launched ever, 3/ used technology never been used at scale (let alone universally) 4/ all profit-driven biotech/pharma companies willing to participate were offered free money AND complete protection from ANY liability resulting from the ‘vac’ granted by .gov.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

The issue is more complex than that. Imagine you are responsible for the lives of millions of citizens. You will probably do whatever you can to minimize the risk (of transmission, severe cases, deaths). For people in charge, the most powerful tool today is the vaccine as there is no universal 100%-efficient cure yet. They will encourage everyone to vaccinate as this is basically the only thing they can do, in spite of its efficiency being much lower than expected. The alternatives are limiting various freedoms of citizens up to extreme forms like in Australia.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
horns4lyfe 5y ago
This is not some binary “vaccinate everyone or take away freedoms choice”. And politicians are not our parents, they are not responsible for the lives of millions. They have limited roles on our lives that we elect them to; “taking care of me and making sure I’m healthy” is not their role, it’s mine.
- nomorewords 5y ago
  I think this is the "American" way of looking at it and does not really represent what people think in the western world.

acdha 5y ago

> when they wane in effectiveness after 3 months and don’t prevent transmission much at all Two things to consider: “wane” is not the same as “dropping to 0” — the protections against severe cases have been shown to remain substantial even if it's not 100% — and “prevent transmission” in this case was referring to people who live in the same household, which is by far the hardest situation in which to prevent spread since that's a significant amount of time sharing air without masks. A better question would be things like how much vaccinations prevent spread from shorter / masked contexts such as transit, school, work, shopping, etc. — similar to how we might not conclude that a bulletproof vest is useless because it can't handle sustained fire from a machine gun.