The end goal of any measure, including vaccine passes, has always been the same: preventing a large number of deaths. Vacccines still prevent a large number of deaths, both directly (strongly reduced risk of death from Covid) and indirectly (reduced strain on the healthcare system). These hold true even if vaccines only effect outcomes after getting Covid and have zero effect on transmission rates at all, they're not up for discussion. As such there really isn't much of an ethical dillema here. There is plenty of data available on all of these points. Whether someone somewhere incorrectly touted vaccines as stopping transmission at any point isn't worth discussion, it's just another one to add to the list of "uninformed statements made about vaccines" which is billions of lines long at this point.

If we're being charitable, the end goal of vaccine passes is to "nudge" people into getting the vaccine.

The goal of vaccine passes is to allow business to open for some that would not be allowed to open for anyone otherwise. The nudge is merely a minor but welcome side-effect.

This cannot be true. The same goal could trivially be achieved simply by not forcing the businesses to close in the first place.

That's what you believe, but GP was talking about intent and for that only the thoughts of the people doing all the "intending" count. People that believe that not closing is a good idea are usually not the ones proposing vaccination pass schemes (but some of them might still gladly accept them as a compromise)

Vaccines did stop transmission before delta. That's why many countries weren't big on vaccine passes, we just needed to get higher than the herd immunity threshold and it was fine, a few antivax wouldn't have changed the equation that much.

Now, herd immunity is just a dream, we can't count on the vaccinated to protect the unvaccinated anymore. So, plan B, and as it turns out, the key of plan B is also vaccines, but now we need 100% vaccinated, not 60%, so, vaccine passes.

Maybe it will change if we get better treatment, or if the virus mutates to be less lethal to those with no immunity. But for now, get vaccinated or stay at home.

Reduce transmission. Nobody serious ever said they would stop transmissions because they were found not to during their testing last year.

Stop lying. We can't solve any problems if you keep denying reality.

- Up until mid-2021 people still thought "transmission was exceptionally rare" in vaccinated individuals: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/yes-vacci...

- Biden said it would stop transmissions: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-if-vaccinated-wont-g...

- Fauci said it would stop transmissions: https://web.archive.org/web/20210604093134/https://www.medpa...

This is late stage narrative from 2021. In 2020 they were still questioning whether "breakthrough infections" were real. The narrative shifts over time, but if you know how to use a search engine you'll see it clear as day.

I'm appalled by Biden's careless statement. But I can't find the Fauci quote in that article (likely hampered by pop-ups). I do agree that authorities have been pretty reckless in their promises.

I updated the link to an archived version.

Fauci and the CDC were a little more careful, but they insinuated effectively the same thing with vaccination induced herd immunity. Of course, we now know the vaccines do nothing for herd immunity, and it seems only infection actually does anything in this regard. I don't have the time to dig up everything every time I need to make an argument, and I wish there was a proper repository of information for this stuff - and that again, is a failing of the government.

> and it seems only infection actually does anything in this regard

Infection doesn't either. The effect of infection is stronger wrt to spread for a few weeks or months but that difference isn't a long term thing. That's not how you reach herd immunity, it's how you reach seasonality.

Do we have any proof of people getting re-infected at a population level, or even any proper studies of individual re-infection? Because a lack of re-infections is what I think would constitute a basis for building herd immunity.

That basis is gone, no study required. Reinfections have long ceased to be noteworthy events. But yeah, there are also studies. None as elaborate and big as, say, a vaccine phase 3, because there aren't really any decisions swiftly based on the exact value of reinfection probabilities, but enough to show that there's no reason to assume that there will be less reinfections than with any other endemic cold.

> Reinfections have long ceased to be noteworthy events.

How long is long? This was published a little over a month ago:

Protective immunity after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

Yeah, that's all about quantifying something well known, not "stop the press, there's been a reinfection!"

You said:

> The effect of infection is stronger wrt to spread for a few weeks or months but that difference isn't a long term thing. That's not how you reach herd immunity, it's how you reach seasonality.

The authors of that study said:

> Community immunity to control the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic can be reached with the acquired immunity due to either previous infection or vaccination.

I haven't seen anything yet that says protection after infection wanes all that much. I see a lot of "we don't know how long it will last", but it seems to last as long as we have data for so far.

Delta and Omicron changed things a bit, didn't they?

As you argueing against vacvine mandates, lock downs, vaccine passports and geberal restrictions, what would be your counter proposal? No restrictions and let the Pandemic run its natural course? We all sae how that would look like in Italy, Spain, Brazil, New York...

I didn't say that vaccines were supposed to transmission pre-Delta, did I? Just that overall vaccines were, and are, more effective against Alpha and whatnot. And even then it wasn't really expected to stop transmissions to 100%.

Still the question remains to be answered: What are our alternatives, assuming we don't want overloaded health systems? Because just doing nothing wpuld be disaster.

Do you have a source? The big clinical trials all tested risk of hospitalization and risk of death. The original Pfizer and Moderna trials did not test risk of infection or transmission. Participants weren’t even tested unless symptomatic.

This is the issue with discussions like this. Arguments about any medical intervention is always about statistics, there are essentially no 100% measures, but you and others always frame this as either or questions that's either completely naive or dishonest. So yes vaccination was also stopping the spread, but nobody thought it would 100% prevent a vaccinated person from getting infected. However it does significantly reduce infection rates and severity of the illness. The hope/assumption was that if sufficient people get vaccinated and the infection rate for vaccinated people drops enough it will stop spreading of covid. AFAIK It's unclear yet if that we haven't stopped the spread is due to insufficient vaccination rates or insufficient drop of infection rates for vaccinated people. This analysis is further complicated by the advent of new variants like omikron.

No, no it doesn’t. Google search the lancet study. It found infection in vaccinated produced similar viral loads as unvaccinated AND easily infected other vaccinated.

It might reduce the risk of transmission, but only a negligible amount.

Of course vaccines are about harm reduction. How can that be "not true" in any frame? What is even the logical alternative? Are we trying to reduce the infection count because smaller numbers are aesthetically more pleasing?

I'm not sidestepping the issue. There is no difficult ethical dilemma here, and nothing changed with the new variant.

If there was a mistake regarding the vaccines, it was to discuss vaccination as optional opposed to the clear ethical obligation that it is. Just like no one is entitled to store unstable explosives in candlelight in a shed next to their neighbour's house.