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My pet theory is the vaccine is good at creating populations that have asymptomatic and subclinical experiences with the disease and that probably contributes t

My pet theory is the vaccine is good at creating populations that have asymptomatic and subclinical experiences with the disease and that probably contributes to spread because otherwise those people would've stayed home if they were sicker. This seems to confirm that it even does this to the rapid tests.

oldandboring 3y ago
Wouldn't it also stand to reason that these people are asymptomatic because they have low viral load, and low viral load means less virus in the air they expel, reducing spread?
- willcipriano 3y ago
  Not more so than if they stayed home.
  - Timon3 3y ago
    But that "staying home" only holds once you feel symptoms, and only until you don't stay anymore. During that specific time they might infect fewer people. Before and after it would be the other way around.
jonnycomputer 3y ago
I think this seems reasonable. The initial hope (well, at least my initial hope) was that the vaccine would significantly reduce transmission to the point at which the virus might be extirpated; but we were quickly disabused of that notion. Nonetheless, once people were vaccinated, they stopped wearing masks or staying home, and so the virus spread more freely. That said, other things are responsible for the huge resurgence in the virus after the first wave. First and foremostly, the virus mutated to evade both the original vaccine and to just become more transmissible. But it also became less deadly, and without morgues filling up like they did in the first wave, and vaccines readily available, and a lot of people with acquired immunity through infection, people made the largely rational decision to get on with their lives. Of course, for some people particularly vulnerable, this was not a good thing, but then, again, the isolation was particularly horrific for a lot of people (like my aunt stuck in a convalescent home, did not see family for almost a year, and then afterwards, only very sporadically, until a couple of days before she died in the ER)

oldandboring 3y ago

Wouldn't it also stand to reason that these people are asymptomatic because they have low viral load, and low viral load means less virus in the air they expel, reducing spread?

willcipriano 3y ago
Not more so than if they stayed home.
- Timon3 3y ago
  But that "staying home" only holds once you feel symptoms, and only until you don't stay anymore. During that specific time they might infect fewer people. Before and after it would be the other way around.

jonnycomputer 3y ago

I think this seems reasonable. The initial hope (well, at least my initial hope) was that the vaccine would significantly reduce transmission to the point at which the virus might be extirpated; but we were quickly disabused of that notion. Nonetheless, once people were vaccinated, they stopped wearing masks or staying home, and so the virus spread more freely. That said, other things are responsible for the huge resurgence in the virus after the first wave. First and foremostly, the virus mutated to evade both the original vaccine and to just become more transmissible. But it also became less deadly, and without morgues filling up like they did in the first wave, and vaccines readily available, and a lot of people with acquired immunity through infection, people made the largely rational decision to get on with their lives. Of course, for some people particularly vulnerable, this was not a good thing, but then, again, the isolation was particularly horrific for a lot of people (like my aunt stuck in a convalescent home, did not see family for almost a year, and then afterwards, only very sporadically, until a couple of days before she died in the ER)