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> and in the case of the latest variant, we know they are not effective I assume you are talking about stopping spread, which could be accurate. I further assu

> and in the case of the latest variant, we know they are not effective I assume you are talking about stopping spread, which could be accurate. I further assume you are not referring to reducing illness severity, because they obviously are effective at that. But that benefit extends beyond the individual insofar as it reduces strain on the overall healthcare system -- ensuring that even those who have injuries or illnesses that have nothing to do with the disease in question receive adequate care. Therefore a vaccine mandate (or restrictions placed upon those who aren't vaccinated) can still be justified.

FridayoLeary 5y ago
It's moving the goalpoasts. The reason the vaccine enjoyed so much initial support was because it was supposed to make covid go away. The politicians seem to think even though the reality has changed, support for the vaccine has remained constant.
- Izkata 5y ago
  > The reason the vaccine enjoyed so much initial support was because it was supposed to make covid go away. Eh, not really. Even that didn't actually come from the vaccine trials; Pfizer and Moderna never tested for infection/transmission, and only made claims on symptoms/disease. Stopping infection/transmission just sorta popped out of politicians/media in early 2021, not actual research - that came a month or two later, and from what I remember the strongest claim was that it might help.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- kittiepryde 5y ago
  That's not really how vaccines work. No force fields are deployed, you'll still catch COVID, but, you're immune system is now got some training in how to handle the situation. I don't remember the promise that, the vaccine would end COVID, I do remember seeing somewhere that if vaccination rates were high enough ( greater than 90%??, been quite awhile now since I read that article ) that herd immunity could be achievable and the spread would eventually end. At least in the US, vaccination rates never even got close.
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    > That's not really how vaccines work. No force fields are deployed, you'll still catch COVID, but, you're immune system is now got some training in how to handle the situation. We do have and continue to make "sterilizing vaccines" which for nearly all common use of the words do "deploy force fields". The small pox vaccine was one of the best examples, the measles vaccine is also up there. The COVID vaccines just aren't as good and people aren't educated enough to understand why some vaccines are basically perfect while the COVID ones aren't.
    - khuey 5y ago
      Sterilizing immunity probably wasn't real, and we just didn't have the technology to know better back in the day: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz... Plenty of after-vaccination cases of measles have been documented in modern times. Obviously nobody is going around giving people smallpox to test that one.
      - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
        > Post-vaccination measles infections, though still uncommon, are much more “regularly observed” than they were once believed to be, Griffin said. 99.99% is close enough for me in terms of a sterilizing immunity. > Eventually, all discussions about sterilizing immunity become nerdy quibbles over semantics. I think the article nails it very clearly we have made vaccines that are for all effective purposes sterilizing. Some people might argue over the world choice but our COVID vaccines are not in the same league as these.
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      No, small pox vaccines were not sterilizing by any definition of the term. There is debate about measles. Otherwise there is only one vaccine in common use that offers durable sterilizing immunity (HPV), and the fact that it works so well is somewhat of a medical mystery.
heavyset_go 5y ago
To put this in perspective, the unvaccinated are 400% more likely to catch COVID than the vaccinated, and they're 1,200% more like to die from COVID than the vaccinated[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
- Vthrowaway153 5y ago
  Note that this data is pre-omicron.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    We've got some Omicron data that shows similar results. Massive gap between unvaccinated and vaccinated case/death/hospitalization rates. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-v... has charts.
    - Vthrowaway153 5y ago
      From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/health/california-omicron-hospitalizations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/health/california-omicron...: > Compared with Delta, Omicron infections were half as likely to send people to the hospital. Out of more than 52,000 Omicron patients identified from electronic medical records of Kaiser Permanente of Southern California, a large health system, the researchers found that not a single patient went on a ventilator during that time. > Compared with Delta, Omicron cut the risk of hospitalization in half, the study found, and the people who came to the hospital with Omicron stayed for a shorter period. The variant cut hospital stays by more than three days, a reduction of 70 percent compared with Delta. > Fourteen of the Delta-infected patients died, while only one Omicron patient did. > “Vaccines are quite helpful,” Dr. Lewnard said. He and his colleagues found that Californians who were vaccinated were 64 to 73 percent less likely to be hospitalized than unvaccinated people. > Even among unvaccinated people, however, Omicron was less likely to lead to hospitalizations than Delta. The absolute numbers are hard to ignore. Tens of thousands of patients in the studies referenced. None went on a ventilator. One died. But when it comes to boosters, we're not even comparing the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. We're comparing the previously "fully vaccinated" to the boosted and asking what real benefit there is to get boosted for people who are not at high risk (i.e. above >70, with multiple comorbidities) and who almost certainly retain meaningful protection from cell-mediated immunity produced as a result of the initial 2-dose series in the face of a variant that a) causes less severe illness generally and b) for which the antibodies our current vaccines produce are far less effective at neutralizing.

FridayoLeary 5y ago

It's moving the goalpoasts. The reason the vaccine enjoyed so much initial support was because it was supposed to make covid go away. The politicians seem to think even though the reality has changed, support for the vaccine has remained constant.

Izkata 5y ago
> The reason the vaccine enjoyed so much initial support was because it was supposed to make covid go away. Eh, not really. Even that didn't actually come from the vaccine trials; Pfizer and Moderna never tested for infection/transmission, and only made claims on symptoms/disease. Stopping infection/transmission just sorta popped out of politicians/media in early 2021, not actual research - that came a month or two later, and from what I remember the strongest claim was that it might help.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kittiepryde 5y ago
That's not really how vaccines work. No force fields are deployed, you'll still catch COVID, but, you're immune system is now got some training in how to handle the situation. I don't remember the promise that, the vaccine would end COVID, I do remember seeing somewhere that if vaccination rates were high enough ( greater than 90%??, been quite awhile now since I read that article ) that herd immunity could be achievable and the spread would eventually end. At least in the US, vaccination rates never even got close.
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  > That's not really how vaccines work. No force fields are deployed, you'll still catch COVID, but, you're immune system is now got some training in how to handle the situation. We do have and continue to make "sterilizing vaccines" which for nearly all common use of the words do "deploy force fields". The small pox vaccine was one of the best examples, the measles vaccine is also up there. The COVID vaccines just aren't as good and people aren't educated enough to understand why some vaccines are basically perfect while the COVID ones aren't.
  - khuey 5y ago
    Sterilizing immunity probably wasn't real, and we just didn't have the technology to know better back in the day: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/sterilizing-immunity-myth-covid-19-vaccines/620023/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/steriliz... Plenty of after-vaccination cases of measles have been documented in modern times. Obviously nobody is going around giving people smallpox to test that one.
    - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
      > Post-vaccination measles infections, though still uncommon, are much more “regularly observed” than they were once believed to be, Griffin said. 99.99% is close enough for me in terms of a sterilizing immunity. > Eventually, all discussions about sterilizing immunity become nerdy quibbles over semantics. I think the article nails it very clearly we have made vaccines that are for all effective purposes sterilizing. Some people might argue over the world choice but our COVID vaccines are not in the same league as these.
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    No, small pox vaccines were not sterilizing by any definition of the term. There is debate about measles. Otherwise there is only one vaccine in common use that offers durable sterilizing immunity (HPV), and the fact that it works so well is somewhat of a medical mystery.

heavyset_go 5y ago

To put this in perspective, the unvaccinated are 400% more likely to catch COVID than the vaccinated, and they're 1,200% more like to die from COVID than the vaccinated[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Vthrowaway153 5y ago
Note that this data is pre-omicron.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  We've got some Omicron data that shows similar results. Massive gap between unvaccinated and vaccinated case/death/hospitalization rates. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-v... has charts.
  - Vthrowaway153 5y ago
    From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/health/california-omicron-hospitalizations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/health/california-omicron...: > Compared with Delta, Omicron infections were half as likely to send people to the hospital. Out of more than 52,000 Omicron patients identified from electronic medical records of Kaiser Permanente of Southern California, a large health system, the researchers found that not a single patient went on a ventilator during that time. > Compared with Delta, Omicron cut the risk of hospitalization in half, the study found, and the people who came to the hospital with Omicron stayed for a shorter period. The variant cut hospital stays by more than three days, a reduction of 70 percent compared with Delta. > Fourteen of the Delta-infected patients died, while only one Omicron patient did. > “Vaccines are quite helpful,” Dr. Lewnard said. He and his colleagues found that Californians who were vaccinated were 64 to 73 percent less likely to be hospitalized than unvaccinated people. > Even among unvaccinated people, however, Omicron was less likely to lead to hospitalizations than Delta. The absolute numbers are hard to ignore. Tens of thousands of patients in the studies referenced. None went on a ventilator. One died. But when it comes to boosters, we're not even comparing the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. We're comparing the previously "fully vaccinated" to the boosted and asking what real benefit there is to get boosted for people who are not at high risk (i.e. above >70, with multiple comorbidities) and who almost certainly retain meaningful protection from cell-mediated immunity produced as a result of the initial 2-dose series in the face of a variant that a) causes less severe illness generally and b) for which the antibodies our current vaccines produce are far less effective at neutralizing.