I feel like "hail mary" would imply some sort of negative consequences for failure in this case. But short of the third shot just dropping dead everyone who takes it (unlikely), it will be easy enough with our media ecosystem to suppress adverse events and handwave away any problems with efficacy.

I mean, we're already seeing numerous countries experience higher cases and hospitalizations with 50%+ vax rates than they ever did before the vaccine rollouts but hardly anyone is asking "hey, what's going on here?"

>I mean, we're already seeing numerous countries experience higher cases and hospitalizations with 50%+ vax rates than they ever did before the vaccine rollouts but hardly anyone is asking "hey, what's going on here?"

There's no reason to ask because we actually do know what's going on here. The r0 of OG COVID is ~3, higher than the flu. The r0 of Delta COVID is between 5 and 9, and the CDC currently estimates it at 8.5. Worse, Delta generates more, and more serious, hospitalizations (among the unvaccinated). [0]

Which countries are experiencing hospitalization rates higher than pre-vaccine times? More importantly, do those trends disappear if you look at areas within those countries that are highly- or poorly-vaccinated?

[0] https://health-desk.org/articles/how-contagious-is-the-delta...