The fact is, we’ve never had (at least in europe) that many vaccinated people, that many sanitary measures (except for full lockdowns at the very beginning), and yet that many number of cases, as well as that many number of people in hospitals (from delta, since omikron looks much weaker, thanks to nature).
In that context, trying to blame JR for trying to give speech to other medical experts, and have a different opinion on that topic, is really unfair. This should actually be the stance most scientists should take : what did we do wrong, what did we miss, was there something we could have done differently ?
I'm in Ontario, Canada. There are regions with 90% vaccinations rate (Toronto) and still the hospitals are full and we are in lockdown. As laymen, people do question whether anyone knows what they're doing.
Toronto has been one of the most compliant cities for masking, social distancing, and vaccines. Even then we are not spared.
Last year germany had half the infections but twice the deaths, so the vaccines are obviously working.
How can you blame “vaccine passports, triple jabs” for rising deaths among the unvaccinated?
Could the governments have done more to unsure vulnerable people got it, while at the same time not bypass every core rules western democracies stand on ?
Here’s a few tips : 1- make the EU contracts with pfizer and moderna public (i can’t believe they thought this was a good idea)
2- don’t pretend vaccines are 100% safe, report about side effects, and communicate about ongoing investigations around them. Saying « everything’s fine » when you can easily find online testimonies of people having horrible side effects, is NOT the good approach.
3- admit that there are still unknown unknowns about mRNA vaccines, as there is with every piece of new tech. We still have 0 statistics about >2 years side effects. By definition.
This is an adult way of communicating. It doesn’t rely on fear but rather providing the maximum amount of quality information, so that everyone can make its own decision about their own health.
This was and is being done. Anti vaxxers are aware and are making plentiful use of the open data sharing being done by governments and researchers on vaccine risks.
For instance, the J&J vaccine rollout was paused in the USA due to an extremely rare side effect - costing lives in the vain hope of making people feel that the government was being cautious and safety-focused. In other countries such as Australia, government scientific committees delayed the rollout of vaccines such as AstraZeneca to certain populations out of fear of side effects as well. Governments have published statistics and discussed the myocarditis and pericarditis risk from mRNA vaccines.
Unfortunately in the age of the internet, people aren’t actually reading hundred page papers and getting degrees in statistics to evaluate published risks of myocarditis or blood clots - hearing their favorite podcaster bring in a guest who warns the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus is enough to convince an antivaxxer to stay in danger.
> We still have 0 statistics about >2 years side effects. By definition.
It’s equally true that we have zero statistics about the side effects of the virus after two years… what is known is that vaccine side effects typically occur within 60 days of administration. Just like we have no data the Sun will rise next morning , but we assume the laws of physics keep working because they always have worked that way.
This was done. I've got an Apple News+ subscription which lets me read several mainstream newspapers and they all had extensive coverage of side effects, and followed the investigations on them.
Measures work, WHEN ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED
When 30%+ of the population is actively working to undermine measures that require high levels of compliance to work -duh- they don't work as well.
Moreover, the new variant is literally the 2nd most contagious disease out there, with a R0 of about 12 vs about 3 for the original variant, second only to measles. Of course numbers will become similar even with some of the population vaccinated.
Just do the math.
Two shots mRNA vaccine is about 25% effective at preventing cases, 3 shots about 75%, and both are around 90% effective at preventing hospitalization, and 98% effective at preventing death.
About 65% of the US population is 2-shots vacinated and 20% 3-shot vaccinated. The majority of the cases is in the minority of the unvaxed population, and 90% of the hospitalization and deaths are.
So, you are literally complaining about the exact opposite of what you state.
What is failing is not the measures, but the lack of measures.
What is disappointing is that bad takes like this have prevented leaders from actually taking any serious steps this wave.
Intramuscular vaccination for upper respiratory aerosol viral diseases does protect your internal body from serious disease. It does that partially with antibody neutralization (via B cells) and with variants, mostly with cross reactive T cells which kill any of your infected cells.
But those B and T cells are in the body serum immune compartment. The serum igG antibodies generated by intramuscular vaccination do seep into your lower lungs a bit and provide protection. But they barely get into the upper respiratory surface tissues (mucosa) and for less than a couple months even at those low levels. And none of the T cells (or B cells making antibodies) become resident in the upper respiratory tissues where infection happens.
This means the upper respiratory mucosa immune compartment can and is still infected and spreads sars-cov-2. Even if sars-cov-2 has 70x less chance of killing you now. It means that tests for infection in the nose/throat/etc will return positive. And it means the intramuscularly vaccinated can and do spread sars-cov-2 and have to wear N95/ffp2 masks like everyone.
The intramuscular vaccination is only the FIRST STEP. The second is intranasal vaccination so that there are tissue resident B and T cells in the upper respiratory mucosa to prevent infection and spread.
It's incredibly frustrating to me (and probably others in the know) that no institutions or governments have acted on this well known historical fact (been known since the 1960s). If we go based off the time it took governments to realize everyone needs to be wearing a proper fit mask with no gaps then they should realize the value of intranasal vaccines about 2 years from now.
The greater measures we should be taking was out of scope; I was merely trying to show that the other complaint saying 'why bother with measures when they don't work' is entirely in the wrong direction -- the fact that this vastly more infectious variant is producing wave similar in scope to the original and Delta waves shows that the measures ARE working -- without them, this more infectious strain would be far worse.
The second and third worlds have far lower vaccination rates. The new omicron variant did not come from the US but from South Africa. We cannot control how well they choose to vaccinate. We can scarcely control it here.