This is quite cynical. I think the vaccines are doing pretty dang well considering they were developed in a matter of weeks following discovery of the virus, and work very robustly against not only the variants that were targeted, but also many that were not.

HIV has decades of study and literature behind it, so why not be more optimistic about the prospects for progress?

First think that poped in DDG:

>Israel reinstates some virus restrictions to avoid a full lockdown.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/israel-covid-restri...

Sorry it's a paywall but the title is enough. Doesn't scream vaccine efficacy to me since they are in the top vaccinated country list.

Infection rate is just an umbrella stat. Hospitalization and death rates are much improved for those with the vaccine.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-brea...

Government reaction to case spikes does not reflect at all on the efficiency of vaccines. Vaccines don't stop you getting a disease they prepare your immune system for it, so when it happens you are more likely to survive.

Seems to me Spanish government bodies (where I live) look at headline case rates and then start making bizarre rules without talking to the scientists.

The vaccine could have stopped the disease if they'd opted for IgA immunity instead of IgG. That means getting drops in your nose rather than a jab, so that immmune cells are activated in the mucosas rather than in the blood. Right now someone who's been vaccinated can continue to replicate and transmite the virus from the glial cells in the nose mucosa, because the immune cells there haven't been trained to fight the virus.

> Government reaction to case spikes does not reflect at all on the efficiency of vaccines.

Living in France I can agree on that.

Yet vaccinated people are still having severe problems up to dying from COVID.

You're not addressing the point you're replying to; that these vaccines were developed in weeks as an emergency. They're non-sterilizing. We wish they were sterilizing vaccines, but that's gonna be the next round now.

They're also not at 80% of the full population; most of the vaccination percentages you see batted around are in adults only, because most countries have vaccinated 0% of their under-12s.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-644288348135

> Israel has a population of approximately 9.3 million people, of which more than 60% are fully vaccinated, according toJuly 21 numbers from the online scientific publication, Our World In Data. The country has had one of the swiftest vaccine rollouts in the world. By February, 80% of those over 60 had already received shots.

Almost no vaccines are sterilising and that is a very high threshold to meet.

Polio and measles vaccines are not even sterilising. It is much more realistic to achieve herd immunity with vaccines than it is to create a sterilising vaccine.

> the vaccines are presented as ultra efficient (94% or more)

At preventing severe disease. Which has been stated since the beginning, remains accurate, and your not understanding that seems to be core to your confusion.

Not everyone only risks mild disease, the vaccine isn't 100% effective on anyone and some have less ability to defend against the virus.

Elderly, and immunocompromised are the ones who willfully unvaccinated people put at risk. I don't want my parents to die so you can argue on the internet. There's also a timeline on this, the longer people wait to get vaccinated, the less time we have a strongly effective vaccine as it appears to reduce in effectiveness after six months.

You're helping to cause this vicious cycle.

The confusion you are spreading is the same as ignoring the difference between HIV and AIDs. If a vaccine was developed that prevented an HIV infection from causing AIDs, you would be the guy telling people it's safe to have unprotected sex even if you have HIV, as long as you're vaccinated. The mRNA vaccine does not prevent the infection from taking place, it prevents the infection from developing into the disease.

mRNA vaccines do not prevent the spread of SARS-COV-2, they are highly effective at preventing a SARS-COV-2 infection from causing COVID-19.

Which is why it's also important to wear a mask.

N95 since it spreads via aerosol

it's pointless to mess around with N95 if you haven't been fit tested. That means close shaves every day. A good analogy would be playing 4K video on a machine that can only render 720p resolution. You'll get a lot more buffering (discomfort) with no improvement in quality (proven benefit).

Improper fitting N95s are still vastlt more effective than proper and improper worn cloth masks, that’s due to the electret fiber charge :)

I love this thread.

At current stage, covid vaccines are mainly to reduce severity of infections with significant reduction in mortality. It doesn't really reduce spread of infections. Research has shown vaccinated individuals at least the same amount of load as unvacccinated. The general sayings of herd immunity with vaccinations can protect those unable to get vaccines don't apply for this situation. In fact, it will pretty much condemn those who don't get vaccinated when vast majority have been vaccinated and actively spread the infections.

Even the CDC admits you can still transmit the virus if you're vaccinated and that the viral load is equal to an unvaccinated person, so my vaccination wouldn't protect your parents anyway.

As you say, I "argue on the internet" because my freedom is stolen with the help of people so in fear that they can't think rationally anymore. I will NEVER let anyone dictate what to inject in my body and I would defend your right and anyone's to choose for themselves.

In 10 years your country and mine won't be recognizable because we will have let the politicians transform democracies in dictatorships since the majority was blindsided by an overblown fear.

Make no mistakes, I am not your enemy, the politicians that are pitting us against each other are.

A vaccinated person has equal viral load to an unvaccinated person? That's not substantiated by any of the available evidence AFAIK.

Early on the question was "can a vaccinated person transmit the virus?" and the answer to that question is yes; but, even with a low viral load, that can still be the case. So the vaccinated person can end up transmitting, but not as much, as an unvaccinated person. If the person asking the question wants just a yes or no answer, then the answer has to be yes. But that's not the full picture.

> As the Associated Press notes, Walensky cited data from the last few days, still unpublished, taken from 100 samples from vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals with COVID infections. They found that the amount of virus in the noses and throats of vaccinated infected people was nearly "indistinguishable" from what was found in unvaccinated people, confirming what some experts have suspected.

https://sfist.com/2021/07/27/cdc-confirms-that-viral-loads-i...

Yes, but the information we have now is that viral load declines much more quickly in vaccinated people than non-vaccinated people. These kinds of discussions where we just fling links we've barely read at each other never go anywhere, and it'd better if this unproductive thread wound itself up now.

85% of patients currently hospitalized for COVID-19 in Oregon have not received any dose of the available vaccines [1]. Oregon hospitals are almost at capacity for ICU beds and are expected to exceed capacity soon. The consequences are drastic for anyone requiring hospitalization; essentially you have to wait for an available bed (e.g. wait for its occupant to die or be discharged) or be flown to a hospital with capacity.

TL;DR: The unvaccinated are using 6 times the available medical care capacity of the vaccinated and are impacting the health outcomes for anyone who needs access to those medical resources, not just those who are suffering from a COVID-19 infection.

[1]: https://www.ohsu.edu/sites/default/files/2021-08/Oregon-Tren...

Why are we wasting limited medical resources on people who refuse to take the full COVID treatment regimen? (Which starts with vaccination.)

If we had limited ability to treat cancer patients, and someone refused treatment of their Phase 1 cancer, we wouldn't give them a bed over someone else, when they come back to the hospital in Phase 3.

There are trauma victims waiting in ERs, who can't get treatment because of this self-inflicted disaster. There are people waiting on life-saving surgeries, who can't come in for them, because all the doctors are busy, and all the beds are full.

Not getting vaccinated is a choice, but choices should have consequences.

Probably for the same reason why you don't reject obese people. 1.5 yrs of pandemic is a lot of time to lose weight and help with overloading hospitals. They should start using scales in front of pubs too or measure body fat :)

If obesity were preventable by two free shots, and the ICUs were flooded by an obesity epidemic, I'd consider it acceptable to take that into consideration during triage, too.

Obesity is the biggest co factor for people over flooding the ICUs, hence my comment. It's preventable by eating less.

Eating less isn't that simple, there's a bloody powerful biological imperative to eat, and modern diets, plus industrialized societies hijack a lot of the negative feedback loops that are supposed to prevent us from overeating... Also, crappy, addictive junk food - or empty carbs - tend to be the most affordable option at the grocery.

Vaccination is two free ten-minute appointments at any doctor's office, UCU, or grocery.

Comparing the two the way you do severely undersells why obesity is such a difficult problem to solve. If it could be solved by two free shots, it wouldn't be a difficult problem to solve.

For some people eating less is easier than getting vaccines. I know people who have panic attacks over the thought (they had to be put under to get vaccinated).

Also, lots of people come from communities that were experimented on by big pharma which explains rate differences amongst races.

> I know people who have panic attacks over the thought (they had to be put under to get vaccinated).

This can't be the reason for why >40% of the eligible population isn't vaccinated.

> Also, lots of people come from communities that were experimented on by big pharma which explains rate differences amongst races.

Even if this does explain lower vaccination rates among Hispanics and African Americans (Who, by the way, have much worse outcomes if they catch COVID), it doesn't explain why white people are also not getting vaccinated. It also doesn't explain why most minorities who have not gotten vaccinated give a reason of "I want to wait and see" [1], and why most white people who have not gotten vaccinated give a reason of "I've already made up my mind, definitely not getting vaccinated."

They don't trust doctors recommendations for vaccination, but apparently trust doctors recommendations for every other aspect of getting treated for COVID...

[1] https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-...

The point is that what other people not willing to do, or being afraid to do, can be difficult for them, even if irrational. I personally can't think of easier thing than losing weight when you know you will die younger and know the present life has worse quality of life as well. Of course the obesity problem has their own anti vaxxer movement where people claim obesity and health problems are not related, that it's beautiful etc.

What about drug addicts, alcoholics, extreme sports people we let them die too?

This is called solidarity, we pay taxes for that too.

Anyway I would still take my chance.

If drastically reducing the incidence of drug/alcohol addiction and sports injuries was as easy as administering 2 shots, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

It is ultimately your choice. Just understand that others making the same choice are currently filling up hospital beds. The numbers don't lie.

Can we expect that people who aren't vaccinated show some solidarity... And vaccinate themselves?

Solidarity with defectors only works when there are enough resources for everyone. When there aren't, we triage. First come first serve, at the expense of people who have not defected is a stupid way to allocate those resources, when there's such a simple preventative measure available.

No it's because I can't vote, go to an hospital, shopping mall or restaurant without a QRCODE.

> In other words, the onerous mitigations you're complaining about are working?

The QRCODE has been in place since 1 week. Deaths were previously at the same level.

Then explain Sweden, India or Africa. It should be terrible there, it's not though.

FYI in Paris region, between march 2020 and march 2021 intensive care beds have been reduced from 2500 to 1700. And this is like that all other France.

It's a much better explanation why we have so much worse stats than Sweden.

Israel has vaccinated 60-70% of its population, which isn't enough for herd immunity.

As for your comment specifically, "the title is enough" isn't a very convincing argument for anything.

That is the exact threshold that was previously being presented as good enough for herd immunity.

But herd immunity stats are all made up anyway. Fauci admitted the US value for herd immunity threshold was being picked based on opinion polling, not science.

It depends on effective R that is affected by a lot of dynamic factors like social distancing and R0 (new variants keep popping). Herd immunity for Covid is bullshit.

No dogma. Most people are just tired of anti-vaxers and their excuses.

Edit: this went downhill rather quickly :(

Someone is as much anti-vax for not wanting the mRNA vax as someone is anti-Linux for not wanting to run the Gentoo nightly build as their operating systemm.

Nah. It's like Bill Gates in the 1990s writing a blog post about the latest Linux distribution and how dangerous the viral GPL within it is.

You know they'll say it about any vaccine, and have been, and that the criticisms are disingenuous and frequently based in deliberate misconceptions.

> But just explain me one thing please. If you trust the vaccine, why are you afraid of me, if it works you will be protected right?

I care more about the people who a vaccine can't help (hopefullly I don't have to give you citations of why no existing vaccine we have for any disease can perfectly protect everyone) than I care about your decision to declare not getting a vaccine the "freedom!!!" hill you want to die on.

> I have become a pariah in my own country (France), I am now forbidden to vote, go to a hospital (unless it's an emergency) , go in a shopping mall and go in a restaurant.

None of this is true; you have the option of presenting a recent negative test result as an alternative.

All of it is true since I refuse to be tracked like some cattle. This is a matter of principle. I'm a human being, not some cog in an inhuman system.

Where's the logic to let people use the metro without any QRCODE but they can't go in a shopping mall?

Anyway, soon the tests won't be free anymore. To have the same "freedom" as a vaccinated person would require to spend about 300€ per month.

You could also get vaccinated.

This is a very bad comment.

Delta is one of the most transmissive and dangerous viruses in history. Many times worse than previous strains of COVID. Delta has the capability of burning through communities even with relatively high vaccine coverage. We are dealing with a historically dangerous strain!

And despite this, daily deaths are significantly lower per capita than previous outbreaks in Isreal despite daily case loads being already as high as previous outbreaks.

If anything, what's happening in Isreal is an indicator that not only are vaccines working, but they are working well. Even as efficacy has reduced over time.

And lastly, efficacy of a COVID vaccine feels kinda orthogonal to efficacy of an HIV vaccine, no?

This says the delta variant is less deadly. https://nypost.com/2021/07/08/dont-buy-the-hysteria-the-delt...

Edit. I’m not completely happy with that source so here’s at least one paper I found:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3886341

These sources are not reliable. The increased hospitalizations in recent weeks discount this theory entirely.

You do realize that the article you're posting is saying exactly what my comment was saying, that vaccines are effective, right?

I was just replying to the alarmist part:

> Delta is one of the most transmissive and dangerous viruses in history. Many times worse than previous strains of COVID.

I think I'm done with HN. It has become like a hivemind, it's absolutely impossible to say anything contrarian about the vaccines and COVID in general.

You have a perfectly sensible comment, you're already downvoted as if you said the earth is flat.

Very disappointing.

> you're already downvoted as if you said the earth is flat.

That's because you're drawing conclusions from data that are not that far off from "the earth is flat".

Claims about Delta being "more infectious" are the same claim that was made for all the others. Dig into how they try to calculate that and you'll find the exact type of models that have repeatedly failed so far.

Remember: the UK released most of its restrictions, including masks and lockdowns in a so-called "freedom day". Experts said the country was performing a dangerous experiment on the entire world. Cases started plunging just three days later. To compare people pointing out the proven, beyond any doubt unreliability of claims about COVID to flat earthers shows just how ideological and blind this whole thing has become.

> just how ideological and blind this whole thing has become.

Yes, I agree that COVID denialism and antivax feelings are this way. :)

Most Republican states in the US dropped restrictions last year and cases aren't skyrocketing. People just don't talk about them.

Cases aren't skyrocketing? Have you...looked at the South recently?

> recently

So you're confirming what I said? "Last year" isn't "recently", meaning the current rise has nothing to do with dropping restrictions.

More than anything else it looks like it's fully seasonal, with timing of the the drops and rises this year matching last year pretty closely regardless of restrictions.

I site based on tech and science and you are confused why the majority or pro vax? Did you ever consider you just flat out wrong?

yeah, maybe just maybe it's because you are spreading nonsense on a forum that likes the thoughts to be backed by evidence and not wild speculation and spurious conclusions. reflect.

honestly if you weren't on the internet you'd just be that weird guy at the bar spouting conspiracy theories and blaming the "man" but instead you're here on an international forum doing the same with the same "weight" as some industry titans and other thought leaders.

Stick with it. If the opposing voices leave then it will get even more one sided. Just save up karma for the rainy days.

If you attack others like this on HN again we will ban you, regardless of how wrong they are or you feel they are.

Even in a wretched, dumb, and hellish flamewar like this one, this comment stands out as crossing the line. No more of this, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How can you sleep at night? There are literally millions of dead and you are letting these right wing trolls opposed to medical care run freely over this site behind this fig leaf of civility.

Five minutes ago on the front page there was a post about the new NYC executive order with multiple comments calling for the murder of scientists. Not saying history will remember them badly, calling for their murder. This is sick, and you’re helping it. It is time to stop coddling these people who are actively trying to prolong the pandemic.

Every day on this site I see dozens of comments that are pushing a lethal agenda of preventing common sense public health actions like vaccination and masking. Making your predominant concern enforcement of tone is enabling mass death. Normally the moderation on HN is pretty good and evenhanded, but on this topic for some reason you seem to be pretty okay with people calling for the deaths of innocents as long as they do it with nice words. It has been ALMOST TWO YEARS! Every step of the way these people have tried to poison the well of public discourse. First it was a liberal hoax, then it was going away any day, then it was the flu, then it was “it’s only in blue cities so let it kill them”, then it was China did it, then it was lockdowns are bad, masks are bad, now it is vaccines are bad. The constant drumbeat of bad faith opposition to getting this catastrophe under control needs to stop - how can you not be exhausted by it?

Thanks for your kind words I guess. Please remember your comment and reflect on it in 10 years when the politicians will have stole all of your freedoms and you won't be able to do anything in life without being tracked, judged and denied.

You’re twenty years too late for this sentiment. You’re already tracked constantly by everything around you. The vaccines are not a useful method of tracking or control. Computers and cameras are much better.

I was speaking about the QRCODES which are mandatory to vote, go to the hospital, shopping mall and restaurants in France.

My god the insanity here is wildly out of control. As he has pointed out, vaccines don't stop transmission in any way, so people's individual choices about whether to get vaccinated or not is absolutely not making them "killing people" or "murderers". If you really want to go there, consider that people are definitely being killed by the vaccines themselves, that is proven beyond doubt now. So it's easy to turn that around and say those trying to push vaccines on people who don't need them are the "murderers".

4.5 million dead people disagree with your conspiracy.

No one is getting killed from the vaccines. It’s rounding error.

This is a ridiculous comment.

1. Vaccines do stop transmission because they make it less likely your internal systems will get infected

2. Vaccines also prevent hospitalizations very effectively

3. Known side effects from the vaccine are very, very low. Much lower than the risk of getting COVID, for the same health outcomes.

4. Getting COVID (the bad outcome caused by the virus) has some chance at Long Covid. The vaccine reduces this because it makes it less likely you get the syndrome after infection.

Israel isn't even 60% vaccinated. Hospitalizations are way down. Serious infection in vaccinated people is 1/6th the rate compared to unvaccinated. That's an 84% reduction in risk. Looks to me like things are going well for vaccinated people in Israel. What's the story I'm missing here?

Look at my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28211268

You mean the _fantastic_ track record? They are better than most other vaccines in history.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28211023.