> Lowers the risk you ... infect other people

Not necessarily:

> Pfizer chairman: We're not sure if someone can transmit Covid after vaccination

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25298299

People that don't know that might be confident they don't need to keep distance or wear a mask anymore.

I think everyone agrees on priorities but nuance is lacking from comments and everyone just assumes the worst interpretation.

EDIT: Though the behavior towards you just seems spiteful now.

It's still your civic duty to get the vaccine just like distancing and mask wearing. Just because it's not proven to be a silver bullet doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

I never said otherwise.

The reason why I'm backing h3cate and the reason why he probably spoke up is that the notion that this is a civic duty invites the idea that it's sure to protect other people, when it hasn't yet been proven to do so.

Indeed, one should get it on the chance that it does, but I'm betting a lot of people will assume the vaccine suffices for others' protection.

The vaccine probably won't make any vaccinated a guaranteed superhuman which 100% breaks the transmission: even with 95% efficacy, we know that 1 in 20 will get the symptoms, for the start, and we know that the virus has to replicate in the body, at least in the upper respiratory pathways, before the immune system fights it down, also in the bodies of the vaccinated.

However, those who get the vaccine, by lowering their own chance to get sick, will contribute to the well-being of everybody: once most people are vaccinated the number of cases needing hospital has to eventually drop.

If the amount of virus produced in the body of vaccinated drops just for some percentage, the chance of transmission in some occasions will somewhat drop, even if it won't be zero. That will help everybody.

Still, there is reasonable probability that there will be a period of time when it will be hard to explain to many that they should keep behaving like potential virus carriers even after they received the vaccine (masks, distancing etc). If they do that then they will contribute to the earlier end of pandemic and directly and indirectly protect some vulnerable. By still behaving like potential carriers they will reduce already mentioned chance of transmission and contribute to health of everybody else. It's somehow non-intuitive. Also non-intuitive: some percentage of all vaccinated will with such behavior directly protect themselves too, simply because even 95% isn't 100% -- that 95% means one of 20 still gets sick, on average.

Then it won't be the first time during this pandemics that "dumbing down" the message isn't the best way to communicate.

Whoever cares about those who are most in danger, and even whoever just cares about the economy, should once again try to understand the nuances and then explain them to those who don't.

This is old news, at least one vaccine is reported to provide sterilizing immunity, so the expectation is swinging towards the idea that probably they all will.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

> the impact of these COVID-19 vaccines on infection and thus transmission is not being assessed. Even if vaccines were able to confer protection from disease, they might not reduce transmission similarly.

> Challenge studies in vaccinated primates showed reductions in pathology, symptoms, and viral load in the lower respiratory tract, but failed to elicit sterilising immunity in the upper airways. Sterilising immunity in the upper airways has been claimed for one vaccine, but peer-reviewed publication of these data are awaited.

Italics are mine.

> These observations suggest that we cannot assume COVID-19 vaccines, even if shown to be effective in reducing severity of disease, will reduce virus transmission to a comparable degree. The notion that COVID-19-vaccine-induced population immunity will allow a return to pre-COVID-19 “normalcy” might be based on illusory assumptions.

I can't sense any tone of favorable expectation in the link you shared.

The bed point is good, what's the current data for ICU bed space in your country?

My county has less than 15% ICU bed availability.

And what was the average availability for the previous 5 years?

It was hovering around 30-40% 2 months ago, and was around 56% in May. Unfortunately historical data is hard to find since most gov/hospital websites only seem to show covid related data.

But that's because the pandemic actually emptied out most hospitals. ICUs are not built for Easter Sunday. Here's an article with pre-pandemic numbers: "Although average ICU occupancy was only 68% in 2005, some hospitals, especially academic medical centers, regularly face occupancy levels exceeding 90% (Wunsch et al. 2013), often requiring the rationing of scarce critical care beds."

http://www.elisalong.com/uploads/1/0/9/7/109701801/long_math...

Sounds like ICU capacity is roughly appropriate for normal-times peak demand to me.

The average occupancy you quote is consistent with the “2 months ago” capacity quoted by GP.

The pandemic emptied hospitals and put many other kinds of therapies, surgeries etc. on delay, because it's dangerous. Hence the need to get vaccinated so we can resume.

...No it doesn't. It only "decreases the likeliness of symptoms". It doesn't affect transmission.

Other replies to my comment already mention it (and have sources).