This report makes no attempt to control for lockdowns or other restrictions. Countries with high levels of vaccination relax those restrictions, increasing COVID infection rates.
And of course focusing on infection rates is really the wrong thing. We know antibody immunity declines over time, but protection against serious illness stays strong.
Yeah, countries absolutely have a negative feedback loop. In the UK, society is largely open and free to intermingle, yet the virus isn't spreading exponentially. In my mind, that's because the vaccine has significantly lowered the ability of the virus to spread, and society has opened up just as much as will cancel that gain out.
Not really the case. Vaccinated people get light recurrences and frequent encounters with the virus keeps the antibodies circulating almost indefinitely.
One think I noticed when getting my vaccine shot was the line going in was very socially distanced with everyone wearing masks. That changed the moment someone was vaccinated. They would come out of the centre, take off their mask, walk right next to the queue, their behavior instantly changed from getting the jab. Almost everyone did this. There is a social impact of having the vaccine that increases transmission behavior in my experience and it was almost everyone that did this.
These social impacts, from countries opening up more due to high vaccination rates are very important factors as clearly they do and have controlled the spread throughout this pandemic and if you don't control for them you can't compare transmission. Even if you compared countries measures you would still end up with this behavioral change meaning people were more likely to spread and catch once vaccinated.
That behaviour is quite culturally specific. I didn’t see any of that sort of thing here in Australia when I went to the vaccination hub. And I’ve had two people refuse social interaction recently because of vaccines. One person because she’s only had her first shot, and the other because it’s only been a couple days since getting the second dose and it takes 7-9 days for the vaccine to do it’s thing. Both highly neurotic people.
I’m sure there’s also plenty of Australians acting recklessly - but the ratios are probably very different country to country.
There's definitely an element of false security after having the vaccine. But standing near someone in a queue is a very different risk profile than simply walking past them.
It's still is an important insight though. The vaccines do not lead to herd immunity.
There isn't a viable herd immunity strategy yet, which implies very young, very old and immuno compromised individuals are still at risk.
It also means 'encouraging' people to take the vaccine won't help, except to keep those people out of the ICU, and if that's the intent it seems more 'freedomy' to me to just not treat unvaccinated covid patients when it peaks.
Because herd immunity is the argument used to defend mandatory vaccinations, and it appears to be a false argument.
Because when you run out of ICU space, there is triage. There was triage last week. There is triage next week.
Who gets care first?
My point is that many people who are unvaccinated would prefer this, than to be forced to be vaccinated. (and they are effectively forced now in many places)
There were two arguments used to justify this imposition:
(a) - the herd immunity helps protect those can't protect themselves (too young, too old, immuno compromised)
(b) - it overwelms the health care infrastructure making it so that in certain places people can't get emergency care because the ICU's are full
Now the first argument (a) seems to be not true, and the second argument (b) seems to me like 'personal responsibility'. If you want to freedom to make these decisions for yourself (such as to get vaccinated), you are only accountable for the consequences of that for yourself.
The idea that you demand to not be vaccinated, but still get first-come-first-served emergency medical care at the expense of others, sounds to me entitled, spoiled and selfish.
So, if it turned out that the vaccine caused side effects that resulted in large cases in the ICU or cancer incidents down the road, you are willing to put them at the end of the line since they decided to take the vaccine? Do you not see how many variations of this argument can be made and how nonsensical the results would be?
City dwellers have increased incidence of cancer or whatever other ailment, so their choice to live in cities precludes them from medical services. Marijuana smokers have higher incidences of x so they don’t get treatment. Motorcycle, bicycle, and scooter drivers are risky actors so their choices preclude them from care. Where does it end?
When there are enough ICU nurses available to meet the demand.
>Doesn’t seem like freedom to me.
Again, can you give me a definition. It sounds like something 'empty' an American would say. Do you mean, Liberty? Like from the French Revolution?
This discussion doesn't matter in the US anyway, because you already have economic triage, where there is just no hospital near poor people. So in the US, the poor people are just 'free to die'.
When we need to triage it absolutely makes sense to take into account how much the ailment depended on the patient's known-to-be-risky choices. Motorcyclists and drug users, sure.
Since the major vaccines have minimal known side effects, we should not now or later blame people for taking them.
It plots rate per 100k population at the time of July when fully vaccinated rate is very less. Atleast the plot should be rate per 100k vaccinated and rate per 100k unvaccinated.
> We know antibody immunity declines over time, but protection against serious illness stays strong.
The article specifically mentions that that is not the case.
> the CDC reported an increase from 0.01 to 9% and 0 to 15.1% (between January to May 2021) in the rates of hospitalizations and deaths, respectively, amongst the fully vaccinated
> This report makes no attempt to control for lockdowns or other restrictions
Haven’t we seen previous reports that basically state that lockdowns and or massive restrictions seem to have a negligible effect on spread?
> The article specifically mentions that that is not the case.
The citation they're using doesn't load for me. I'm looking at results like this:
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...
> The analysis showed that the vaccine's effectiveness in preventing hospitalization and death remained high at 90% for at least six months, even against the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.
> Haven’t we seen previous reports that basically state that lockdowns and or massive restrictions seem to have a negligible effect on spread?
Those reports, even if they're completely valid which is questionable, only show that government-mandated lockdowns have similar effects to voluntary behavior changes in response to waves of COVID infection, which again the OP does not control for.
Another thing: Hemispheres. They specifically mention South Africa. It’s summer there, pretty much every country (at least those I looked at) in the world had lower numbers in summer with cases going up in winter.
Reporting from Africa is complete junk unfortunately. Take Africa out and you will have clear signal. Also worth mentioning: population pyramid is really a pyramid in Africa. There are over billion people in Africa but only 75 million of 60 and older.
This is deeper level of stupid. They take data, then throw in random junk and claim there is no signal in data.
When you look at each continent separately, then there is clear pattern except in Africa. It is sad but expected. There are also 3 clear and explainable outliers: Israel, Mongolia and Malaysia. Take them out and Asia has also clear signal.
And of course focusing on infection rates is really the wrong thing. We know antibody immunity declines over time, but protection against serious illness stays strong.