> The thing is, vaccines were never advertised as tools to prevent infection.

A lot of people believed they were. I've spent some time arguing with people that the punishments for not taking the vaccine were too extreme, and that government-supported firing of people from their jobs was a bad idea.

It was extremely common for people to argue that the vaccine would cut down on transmission (which is basically saying infection) and end the pandemic. Without that pillar it gets quite hard to justify the discrimination against unvaccinated people in Australia. Not sure about the rest of the world but I assume there is a similar story.

this is why i was, and continue to be, against the various vaccine mandates. My employer said to me "upload your vax card or get an exemption else be fired". It was a bridge too far for me and I submitted for an exemption request on grounds of personal conscious. However, a couple weeks later we get another email that says if your exemption request is denied you are fired. I could have taken a moral stand but i have a wife + 2 kids and a MIL dependent on my income and I decided it wasn't worth it. I ended up canceling my request and uploading my vax card.

In the US the politicians know a law mandating the vaccine is a non-starter. So, instead, they encouraged and supported employers threatening their employees. I guess it's ironic that everyone is quitting everywhere anyway.

Who cares about the advertising? The data is in, and the vaccines do both - they decrease your chance to be infected and they make symptoms much more mild if you are infected. The combination of factors is why hospitalisation rates in highly vaccinated countries plummeted.

Or at least they did until omicron. Unfortunately 2 doses of the existing vaccines are pretty ineffective against omicron. 3 doses make the vaccines work better - but I’m honestly a little concerned.

I've heard that but then why do people say we need to get vaccinated to protect the most vulnerable members of society if the vaccine isn't actually slowing the spread and doesn't prevent infection?

EDIT:

To be clear I already had COVID and didn't have any serious symptoms so the argument about a hospital bed doesn't necessarily apply to me. Beyond that I actually got vaccinated, my question centers around the disparity of treatment we are giving individuals who are vaxxed and those who are not if both are capable of spreading. Further it brings in the question of vaccine mandates if they are much less effective then we were led to believe.

> I've heard that but then why do people say we need to get vaccinated to protect the most vulnerable members of society if the vaccine isn't actually slowing the spread and doesn't prevent infection?

Why are you (and others) thinking that since vaccines aren't 100% effective it doesn't help protecting other people ?

What kind of dissonance cognitive gets you there ?

Why are you blind to the fact that a vaccine that mostly works still help reducing infections and why do you equate that to "vaccines don't work to protect others (since some vaccinated people can still infect others) so I shouldn't get vaccinated" ?

How come you are working from a yes/no, full-or-nothing angle ?

A glass of water won't 100% quench your thirst when you haven't drunk in a long time so you won't take it ?

If you're vaccinated and become infected, you will have less of a viral load, and thus will spread less viral particles to others. The duration of infection will also be much shorter, thus lessening the time you can spread the infection to others. The vaccine also prevents some, but not all, infections in the first place.

You're also less likely to take up a hospital bed that someone who is more vulnerable than you needs.

The vaccines do prevent infections and slow the spread. They just don't prevent all infections.

Vaccinated people are between 60-80% less likely to infect others, and they are infectious for less amount of time.

Well I got COVID before the vaccine came out and am not in a high risk group, so I'm not really that worried about me.

But you say it is being a decent human being, but I am confused if we both agree the vaccine doesn't reduce infectivity then why would me getting it change anything for anyone else, since we know it doesn't protect others?

It amazes me that there remains this misguided view that vaccination efficacy around protecting others is a binary mechanism. It's not. There is evidence of at least partial reduction in infection, not just outcome, by being vaccinated.

That's not including the nuanced aspect of it where being vaccinated reduces the severity and duration of symptomatic cases, which by nature reduces the likelihood simply based on time alone, of exposing others.

Parent said he has natural immunity, can you cite any evidence that you can get covid twice? If not then people who can prove natural immunity don't need the vaccine and are just risking their health for nothing.

If you want sources I will find them, but there are studied and not simply anecdotal instances of multiple infections of covid, yes. The outcomes range somewhat across the board from subsequent risks of severe infection or death, in a way that resembles vaccination.

It seems it is rare : https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/reinfe... .

Also found a recent CDC study on this : https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s_cid=mm... .

However, from said study : "First, reinfection was not confirmed through whole genome sequencing, which would be necessary to definitively prove that the reinfection was caused from a distinct virus relative to the first infection. Although in some cases the repeat positive test could be indicative of prolonged viral shedding or failure to clear the initial viral infection (9), given the time between initial and subsequent positive molecular tests among participants in this study, reinfection is the most likely explanation"

Do with this as you will, but it seems there's nothing concrete. "most likely explanation" isn't good enough to force people to get an emergency use, rushed vaccine.

Reinfection has been well established all over the place. You can identify it via PCR, you don't need to sequence it.

PCR has false positives. Also I came with sources, you didn't provide any.

If you can’t research the scientific literature effectively, that’s on you.

No, it is on you to provide proof for your assertions. It is not my job to verify your claims.

You are parroting debunked arguments from 2 years ago.

You are wrong. There, isn't that a stupid argument?

If you are going to just state your opinions as fact without actually providing evidence for extraordinary claims then this conversation is pointless.

It is you, sir, who is making extraordinary claims. The very reference you cite states that: "Reinfection with human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been documented."

> It amazes me that there remains this misguided view that vaccination efficacy around protecting others is a binary mechanism. It's not. There is evidence of at least partial reduction in infection, not just outcome, by being vaccinated.

I do not understand if this argument is made in good faith or if it's covid deniers stirring shit up in the public debate or just rationalizing their fear of the syringe (yes, I know of 2 anti-vax who admitted it was their original reasons to refuse the vaccine).

I think with the majority of instances it's a matter of repeating what they've seen online somewhere, where it is nearly unilaterally presented in similar tone. Some cases are malicious intent I'm sure, but I wouldn't guess the most of them.

Seems some people have a genuine difference in the way they asses their risk.

Some people are scared that there have been 800k+ deaths in the U.S. Others say that's only 1 in 400, mostly old and with commodities, and not that big a deal.

The sophomoric response would be the trope that teenagers always think they are invincible and it won’t happen to me. I think some people never grow out of that phase.

There is also something called the normalcy bias which has an interplay with psychology and risk assessments.

Something like 1 in 400 can easily become 1 in 200. At what point does the majority notice and act appropriately?

A vaccine is likely to enhance your immunity and make you less likely to become ill and infect others. It's not guaranteed to do that, but that's different than not doing it at all.

> if we both agree the vaccine doesn't reduce infectivity

I don't agree with that, and I don't believe the currently available data does, either.

This isn’t true, and the lack of testing during the phase 3 trials to see if there were non-symptomatic cases was a deliberate design choice to avoid answering that question.

I’m all in on vaccination, but let’s not rewrite history.

That’s not completely true either. The UK phase 3 trial of the AZ vaccine included weekly testing to catch asymptomatic cases.

> The thing is, vaccines were never advertised as tools to prevent infection.

In the USA? Yes, they were. There was no mention of a future need for boosters. There was a simple promise of safety, and for things to return to normal.

Literally everything I read about vaccine efficacy said that the metrics they tracked were about reducing the incidence of symptoms and serious disease. They didn't even test people in the clinical trials for COVID unless they started showing symptoms.

Now, certainly, some media outlets may have been irresponsibly or ignorantly misinterpreting all this and pushing the narrative that it would make everyone immune. But that's not the CDC or WHO's fault.

> There was no mention of a future need for boosters.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. Things change.

> There was a simple promise of safety, and for things to return to normal.

You must have been reading some really watered-down news, and not actually reading what public health officials were saying.

Well, the narrative being disconnected from facts is a different conversation.

No, they were promoted as drastically reducing the chance of severe symptoms and hospitalizations.

We got to return to normal for about 2 months (June and July!) Maybe next year we’ll get 3 months, but I wouldn’t count on it.

the vaccines may not have been advertised as that, since the evidence during development for that was marginal. but recent evidence suggests that it does prevent infection. unfortunately, less true with omicron.

The vaccine was initially sold as the tool to end the pandemic and get life back to 'normal'. The narrative has evolved to suit the deficiencies of the vaccine and keep profits from sinking.

They could have ended the wildtype pandemic. As soon as delta appeared it was impossible. They have 90% efficiency at best and you need 84% of all people protected to stop delta (1-1/R0 for R0=6). It's impossible to get such high vax rate.

They pretty much did end the Delta pandemic in the Bay Area. We had a minor spike up and then it subsided without any major restrictions or strain on the healthcare system. Vaccination rates are 95%+ where I am, so 0.95 * 0.9 = 0.855 and it was still over the herd immunity threshold.

We’re at 80% vaccination in Spain… I think we can surpass 84%.

37.7M fully vaccinated, 47.35M population -- impressive!

I was initially assuming you were excluding kids or other people ineligible to get vaccinated.

It was kinda-possible to return to normality with delta though. The entire EU is above 70% of the total population, with some countries above 80%. And of the unvaccinated, most are children who are less susceptible in the first place.

But with Omicron, it's literally like we're back to March 2020. Norway (with 81% vaccination rate) went from normality to full lockdown in the past two weeks. I'm pretty sure that's coming everywhere else during the next month or so.

If omicron causes lockdowns again than this will literally happen every winter. Vaccines were the end state. There is nothing left to do but accept the risks and move on with life.

People scared about hospital capacity should be asking strong questions to their politicians about why they squandered 2 years of peoples short life with zero new capacity.

The public shouldn’t shoulder the failures of politicians nor these “experts”.

If lockdown is considered then it goes to show how little politicians know about the virus.

We need to treat Corona the same way we treat the flu and we should start now.

As an example the current number of hospitalizations here in Denmark is about 50% of the worst period for the 2017/18 flu.

The thing is that various governments have neglected hospitals and health care, that is the real problem that must be dealt with.

Not necessarily. Eg the Netherlands has ~77% vaccination rate, which is pretty close to the quoted 84%.

I'd go so far as to say 77% is "good enough", ie. it's time to live with the virus and not change our ways because of it.

Any links to any marketing material "selling" the vaccine as the tool to end the pandemic?

The UK government absolutely did this.

Governments requiring it to work regularly again is the only "marketing material" you need.

> The narrative has evolved to suit the deficiencies of the vaccine and keep profits from sinking.

The narrative may have evolved but that was more due to the virus evolving rather than some conspiracy driven by Pfizer and Moderna to sell more shots. More people being vaccinated benefits everyone, not just the pharmaceutical companies, and saying otherwise is a bit paranoid.

Or if the virus gets irrelevant.

One doesn't exclude the other. People don't see an end with natural evolution, so the vaccine was/is the main focus for a long time.