Of course.

> They don't seem to stop transmission, so mandating them on populations that aren't at risk is hard to justify.

If you transmit to someone who is vaccinated, there's a lower chance they'll get sick. Vaccines are a preventative measure; I would rather see people vaccinated before they become at risk rather than seeing them get COVID because they weren't vaccinated in time.

(Not claiming vaccines completely prevent COVID, just that they definitely seem to reduce the risk of one getting sick from it.)

And what about herd immunity? If, say, 99% of a population is vaccinated, then will 1 in 100 people still be at great (or greater) risk due to the vaccinated population still carrying and transmitting the virus freely? Or would those 1 in 100 people be at lesser risk due to less people coughing and sneezing everywhere?

-Emily

I agree with your general point, but to be clear, it likely reduces your chances of doing that, to some extent. It does not prevent you from spreading COVID.

Uncontrolled spread in the unvaccinated puts others that can not produce an immune response at risk.

>Vaccinated people aren't at risk.

This is false, fully vaccinated people in my network have been hospitalized.

>Is there any evidence for that though?

Reproduction and mutation in the infected is the primary mechanism by which variants develop.

Considering that also vacinated people get covid, this doesn't help at all, and since they're mostly asymptomatic, they can even spread it more.

Otherwise, I agree... vaccines are available for everyone, if you want to risk it, it's your risk to take.

Can you provide a source for this statement? As far as I know, even though not 100% effective against infections and virus shedding, the vaccines do help against spread so I'd like to know if I'm misinformed.

This isn’t remotely what we are dealing with with regard to Covid vaccination. In fact the opposite. That’s my understanding of it.

Evidence and actual science says otherwise.

This part very specifically and provably isn't true. Vaccines reduce the actual transmission rate by about 90%. What you said about vaccinated people who have managed to get infected still carrying the same viral load is actually true - but your comment makes it sound as if the virus will keep spreading at the same pace regardless of whether you are vaccinated or not - which is simply not true.

This is stated with far too much confidence. It may be true that vaccinated individuals can still transmit COVID. It may also be true that they can't. We don't know yet.

They're over ninety percent more likely than their unvaccinated counterparts to remain uninfected, in which case they will not transmit the disease.

The questions regarding reduced viral shedding among the infected but vaccinated, and how much that effects that population's transmission rate, is interesting but probably secondary, I would think. (I don't know quite whether those were all rhetorical questions or something you wanted a dissertation on :D )

At this point my conclusion is that everyone either get

- the vaccine,

- the vaccine and covid

- or covid without the vaccine

- or just covid

within the next couple of years unless they live outside of society.

I see no way an ordinary unvaccinated person can avoid catching covid now except using extremely much more invasive countermeasures than the vaccine.

But I might have missed something. How do you suggest people avoid it?

(Just theoretical interest. I took the vaccine as soon as it was clear that those charge took it themselves ;-)

Only if they catch COVID, which is much less likely after vaccination.

What, are you assuming that everyone is carrying COVID in their noses all the time?

Can you point to some canonical sources on this? Preferably things that were published in the last year or so.

My understanding is that effects on infection and transmission were overstated and very short lived anyway. Didn't everybody get covid eventually, multiple times even?

We still don't have any hard evidence that the vaccine stops transmission. It's possible that it keeps you from getting sick while being an asymptomatic spreader.

That's why we're still wearing masks even after vaccination until we have better understanding of how the vaccine affects transmission rates.

We are in agreement on these points, and to be fair I never made such a broad claim, nor did I intend to insinuate such.

You seem to be concerned with defending vaccination which is understandable, but I believe you're interpreting my statements as completely disregarding the utility and benefits of vaccines, which is not a position I support or attempt to argue.

> Do you realize that the extent to which vaccinations stop transmission is on a continuum? It is not "on", or "off" in exact terms.

We are in agreement on this point as well.

> The current COVID-19 vaccines immunize to an extent that the re-transmission rate is negligible.

A citation on this claim would be greatly appreciated - "negligible" is strongly worded there. FWIW I'm aware of the literature showing that vaccination reduces transmission, but I've never seen it dismissed as negligible.

Thanks for the citation you did share, it's indeed very relevant.

> why it in fact poses a greater risk to those who choose to stubbornly remain unvaccinated

We are in agreement that viral immune escape also poses a risk to the unvaccinated population, especially those who have not acquired natural immunity.

> I'm not going to continue on this conversation

> trying to talk to you would be extremely stupid on my part

I'm sorry I've put you off - my position is not set in stone and I do my best to keep an open mind when presented with conflicting evidence.

I get the impression that you think I'm incurably "anti-vax", so to clarify: my opinion is that vaccines are a powerful tool which must be carefully and strategically used.

But not as a result of acquiring immunity.

It makes its way around the conspiracy/anti-vax circles - so not so surprising that you might not have heard it. To be clear: the claim is that vaccinated but uninfected people can spread COVID. That's obvious bullshit. You should certainly rule it out.

You seem to be assuming the answer to that is either true or false. Isn't it much more likely that vaccines prevent some transmission and the question is how much.

It translates into "vaccinate everyone" because the fact that transmission can't be eliminated means that it's likely that nearly every person will eventually be exposed to live virus, so we'd better hope everyone is vaccinated so the effects of that exposure are lessened.

If it were more effective at reducing spread, vaccinating everyone would be less critical, since we might achieve heard immunity with a smaller vaccinated percentage.