> Amazing how even raising this as a question gets you downvoted.
That's because it's readily debunked. Nurses largely can't evade the vaccine mandates by moving; virtually all healthcare facilities are subject to the Federal vaccine mandate.
> Yes, I’m sure it’s a factor, and needlessly so considering the vaccine seems to have a negligible effect on transmission.
"Both vaccines reduced transmission, although they were more effective against the alpha variant compared to the delta variant. When infected with the delta variant, a given contact was 65 percent less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. With AstraZeneca, a given contact was 36 percent less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated."
>Your response is extremely typical - just generally stated principles bordering in their generality on banality and without any ounce of data.
Y'see in SCIENCE we have this generally stated principle that we don't draw empirical conclusions from a dataset of a few hundred observations.
How banal!
"This echoes data seen from studies in other countries, including highly vaccinated Singapore, where 75 percent of new infections reportedly occur in people who are partially and fully vaccinated."
This does absolutely nothing to back up your claim that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread the Delta variant.
But please ask for help next time you move those goalposts, I wouldn't want you hurting yourself.
> Do you have a link to a study with adequate controls demonstrating that the Covid vaccines substantially reduce transmission?
It's not our job to educate you. Search for yourself. There are literally dozens of studies from around the world that show that the vaccines reduce transmission[1]. Why should we bother to dig up research when people like you have proved that they don't want to change their mind on the issue? Why don't you provide studies that prove your conclusion?
Also, no one cares primarily about transmission. If an infection were harmless, we wouldn't mind if it spread to 100% of all humans.
The vaccine is intended to reduce illness and death, which it does dramatically.
>In this study, there were more infections in the vaccinated group. That defies logic, though, and intuitively the infection rate of the vaccinated group cannot be higher than that of the unvaccinated. That's why I mentioned confounding factors.
Unless you're going to make a rigorous statistical analysis, no, we had studies on this subject with a proper methodology and this is not what they found : https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891 (88% efficacy found).
>Yes, which means that it is more infectious. Its resistance (or lack of) to the vaccines isn't really relevant in a country with a 10% vaccination rate.
>The fact that it's outcompeting other variants in countries with relatively high vaccination rates likely means that the vaccines are less effective against it.
No one is disputing this. The point of contention is that the person I'm replying to had the thesis these variants arose because of vaccines, which is simply not true.
> We're specifically talking about delta here, and I'm unaware of a study based upon a larger cohort where a statistically significant number of cases were sequenced, the variant determined, and the dominant variant found to be delta.
You've not been looking then. Entire countries sample variants in the population.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that Covid-19 vaccines are no longer effective at preventing transmission of the virus.
"...what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission. So if you're going home to somebody who has not been vaccinated, somebody who can't get vaccinated...
I would suggest you wear a mask in a public indoor setting,"
Claiming that the vaccine prevents spread is misinformation.
> Only asymptomatic, more infectious people will be allowed in.
I don't see anything in the study that would indicate that people with the vaccine are more infectious than those without. Rather, the study says they are infectious.
The variable in this study was alpha vs delta variant and the result is that while the vaccine prevented the transmission of alpha variant it does not prevent the transmission of the delta variant.
This study does not address the question of whether those with the vaccine are more or less likely to spread the delta variant than those without the vaccine.
> Since the vaccination doesn't help against spread, the argument is not true in my opinion.
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.
>> > OK. So are you now retracting your previous claim that "vaccines do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2"?
> Why should I?
Because it is false.
> It is true, because I was infected after getting vaccinated by someone who was vaccinated as well.
That does not make your statement true. The vaccines never prevented transmission at 100% effectiveness. Never ever. They were not marketed as doing so, and if anyone did claim they prevent transmission at 100% effectiveness, then that person was spreading misinformation. It was never true.
They didn't even prevent severe outcomes at 100% effectiveness, and they were always much better at preventing severe outcomes than they were at preventing infection. (Initially >90% vs. <~ 80% against Alpha).
The whole idea that one case of transmission proves the vaccines are ineffective at preventing transmission is silly.
> Don't twist my words.
I am not twisting your words. You were making a judgement call, which you are obviously not qualified to make.
>The entire goal of the vaccination campaign is to slow and manage the spread
Looks like you're repeating some politicians' talking point without bothering to check it yourself - the existing vaccines have no noticeable effect on the spread:
"Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus."
> Because vaccination prevents you from spreading covid to others...
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.
> The whole idea that one case of transmission proves the vaccines are ineffective at preventing transmission is silly.
There are many cases. Mine is just the one where I know by 100% that the vaccine was ineffective at preventing transmission. However, the CDC itself says that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines cannot prevent transmission anymore:
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that Covid-19 vaccines are no longer effective at preventing transmission of the virus.
"...what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission. So if you're going home to somebody who has not been vaccinated, somebody who can't get vaccinated...
I would suggest you wear a mask in a public indoor setting,"
Misinformation?
> Seems to be greater than 50% to me. Drops after that, but once again, it was always known that the effectiveness of the vaccine would be temporary.
Guess which efficacy is smaller than the efficacy against symptomatic disease?
> By saying who they allow to fly or not. You don't have to get vaccinated. United does not have to fly you.
Sure anyone is free to avoid business, but if you want to put people on nationwide blocklists, then that may be illegal.
>> I am sure we will see such questions being clarified in courts soon.
> Will probably be very short court cases...
Sure, if the pro-mandaters still don't have any good arguments and have to resort to ad hominems instead, I am sure it will be quick.
> Unfortunately, the vaccine’s beneficial effect on Delta transmission waned to almost negligible levels over time. In people infected 2 weeks after receiving the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, both in the UK, the chance that an unvaccinated close contact would test positive was 57%, but 3 months later, that chance rose to 67%. The latter figure is on par with the likelihood that an unvaccinated person will spread the virus.
The only thing that remains, is some protection against symptomatic disease.
> The greatest confusion here is found in comments like yours, which imply that the vaccines provide sterilizing immunity and stop transmission of the virus, which they do not.
My comment does not imply that. It implies that a vaccinated person is less likely to spread it than an unvaccinated person, which is obviously true, given that the vaccine significantly lessens the chances of having it (if you don't have it, you won't spread it), and even for those who do get sick, it lessens the severity of the symptoms (a person coughing mucus and spit everywhere is more likely to spread it than someone who just has a fever).
> I've also already suggested that the known low effectiveness of reducing transmission would indicate that it does not have sterilising immunity.
Your original statement, and some of your followup statements, argued against the vaccine reducing spread at all. If you're talking purely about sterilizing immunity now, ignoring any other reduction in spread, then either you're moving the goalposts or some massive miscommunication happened multiple times in a row. But sure, it might not be sterilizing. And in that case I say: This whole conversation was pointless because I don't care if it's sterilizing, I care if it reduces spread by a lot.
> The science is murky on whether being vaccinated prevents being infectious. Others have pointed it out and are being flagged.
It’s because they’re being disingenuous.
Vaccination reduces infection severity and length. Reduced infection severity reduces coughing, which reduces spread. Reduced infection length gives less time for transmissibility.
So even if you can still transmit the virus while vaccinated, there is value in reducing the amount of time you’re infectious and the amount of viral load you’re spreading into the air.
It’s not a binary thing, despite what some are trying to suggest.
> Furthermore, the vaccines don't prevent transmission,
They do prevent transmission, since they make people less likely to be infected, and if you're not infected with the virus you won't transmit it. The vaccines are somewhat less effective at preventing people from being infected at all than they are at preventing hospitalization and death, but still significantly effective. [1]
> You're citing old data that doesn't even include delta or omnicron
Do you have anything showing the counterpoint? I'm very interested in seeing it if you do.
The point of making this distinction is that hundreds of millions of people have already been infected and shouldn't be hounded and harassed by people yo take a vaccine if they don't want it.
If you want me to worry that unvaccinated people with a prior infection are clogging up ICUs, show me evidence that its actually happening and I'd be happy to get on board.
-- and indeed they do not prevent transmission, or infection for that matter. Many many people, from Joe Biden to my own mother have been injected and boosted 5-times over, and still got a COVID infection. The vaccines simply don't work very well.
> And the risks of side effects are much, much lower than the risks of those effects from the actual illness.
You can't make a blanket statement about risk, especially when so little was know about the risk of side effects across the population.
For people like us, and the large number of people who have had COVID, we know what the risk of a COVID infection is, and in our case - as with most other people who are in good health, and not extremely elderly, it's a very mild condition.
On the other hand, health officials continue to deliberately downplay the significance of side effects, which we now know includes non-negligable risk of life threatening heart dissease and Bell's Palsey.
> Lockdowns were there to reduce the secondary consequences from running out of capacity.
That was the claim, certainly. But as we predicted, this never actually happened anywhere in the world - not even in places where people live in poverty, and healthcare is virtually non-existant.
> Several places ran out of capacity to handle the dead, let alone the living. I still don't understand how we were able to get short of medical oxygen, but that happened in some places too.
A lot of that stuff turneded out to be fabricated, but it spooked a lot of folks.
Sweden never locked down, and their outcomes were better than most of the rest of Europe:
> Masks likewise, reduce the transmission rate. Not eliminate, reduce. That's not pointless.
They don't though. Scarecly anyone wore the kind of mask that could possibly make any difference. It was security theatre to calm the masses. All a cloth mask does is redirect your breathe out the sides. It doesn't filter anything.
> Sure, lots of kids and young adults won't die, they'll only get sick for a few weeks, with unknown long term damage.
My kids have never had any COVID symptoms at all since we were first infected March 2020. So in our case (and millions like us), it's actually not unknown. I wouldn't even know if they had had the disease a dozen times over already - I hope they have, because it help further fortify their natural immunity.
Over and over the claims of the expert class have been proven wrong. They claimed to know things that they couldn't possibly have known, and continue to lie and deflect to this day.
> My comment was about effectiveness in reducing infection and transmission.
This is not the same as
>>> "Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19"
Being vaccinated does not 100% prevent infection and transmission, but it does reduce the likelihood of infection and transmission by about half. The fact is the vaccines are effective in reducing infection and transmission. Your assertion that "the vaccine barely moves the needle on transmission if at all," is gross exaggeration at best and entirely false at worst. The science of immunology and vaccines is sound and well-established. The risk of adverse effects from vaccines is vanishingly small, while the likely benefit of reduced risk of infection, severity of illness, hospitalization and death is huge.
The COVID vaccines are nothing short of a miracle of modern medicine. The only grave problem here is laymen making uninformed medical decisions based solely on political tribalism and failed political ideologies, evangelizing their logically unsound and medically ignorant position, and refusing to cooperate with the interests of public health while needlessly putting themselves and others at significantly increased chances of infection, severe illness and/or death. This is the very definition of anti-social behavior, placing one's ego and whims above the needs of all others, and not caring whether others get sick, suffer and die.
That's because it's readily debunked. Nurses largely can't evade the vaccine mandates by moving; virtually all healthcare facilities are subject to the Federal vaccine mandate.
> Yes, I’m sure it’s a factor, and needlessly so considering the vaccine seems to have a negligible effect on transmission.
That doesn't seem to be true.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/vaccinated-people...
"Both vaccines reduced transmission, although they were more effective against the alpha variant compared to the delta variant. When infected with the delta variant, a given contact was 65 percent less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. With AstraZeneca, a given contact was 36 percent less likely to test positive if the person from whom the exposure occurred was fully vaccinated."
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