I think the reason many people want high vaccine uptake is that they believe it would bring R (the reproduction number) down, possibly even below 1. As far as I know, this seems possible, but quite some distance from the certainty many are taking it as. I've seen one study mentioned that suggested that vaccination reduces the number of…
I think the reason many people want high vaccine uptake is that they believe it would bring R (the reproduction number) down, possibly even below 1. As far as I know, this seems possible, but quite some distance from the certainty many are taking it as. I've seen one study mentioned that suggested that vaccination reduces the number of additional people one infected person is likely to infect by a factor of 6 to 10. I'm skeptical of this claim for a couple of reasons, but if it _were_ true, it would be a valid reason, I think, to encourage vaccination. Another study found only about a 30% improvement. So I think the truest thing one can say is that we don't really know; yet a lot of people are acting as if we had solid data.
A proper vaccine would provide a high degree of sustained immunity which these currently don't have; they are all leaky. What we seem to be seeing is the vaccinated are being infected and are unknowingly spreading the virus. For the unvaccinated often the disease is so mild they too have been spreaders but given so many now vaccinated in ordinary terms we should have achieved some degree of herd immunity. With a reliance on these leaky expiring vaccines, we may never achieve herd immunity. Worse, if there is some OAS, the re-infections won't lead to immunity in the vaccinated.
I think the reason many people want high vaccine uptake is that they believe it would bring R (the reproduction number) down, possibly even below 1. As far as I know, this seems possible, but quite some distance from the certainty many are taking it as. I've seen one study mentioned that suggested that vaccination reduces the number of additional people one infected person is likely to infect by a factor of 6 to 10. I'm skeptical of this claim for a couple of reasons, but if it _were_ true, it would be a valid reason, I think, to encourage vaccination. Another study found only about a 30% improvement. So I think the truest thing one can say is that we don't really know; yet a lot of people are acting as if we had solid data.
A proper vaccine would provide a high degree of sustained immunity which these currently don't have; they are all leaky. What we seem to be seeing is the vaccinated are being infected and are unknowingly spreading the virus. For the unvaccinated often the disease is so mild they too have been spreaders but given so many now vaccinated in ordinary terms we should have achieved some degree of herd immunity. With a reliance on these leaky expiring vaccines, we may never achieve herd immunity. Worse, if there is some OAS, the re-infections won't lead to immunity in the vaccinated.