> I remember when I got vaccinated, and "science said", that I won't get covid or be able to spread it after the second shot (94% or whatever the number was for not getting it at all).

The 90-95% number was always for preventing severe disease. No one listened to the details, it seems.

To me, "symptomatic" and "getting sick" means any symptoms, not just severe ones.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective...

> the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the B.1.617.2 variant 2 weeks after the second dose, compared to 93% effectiveness against the B.1.1.7 variant

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0514-covid-19-vacci...

> mRNA vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) reduced the risk of getting sick with COVID-19 by 94% among HCP who were fully vaccinated

...

Some of us also remember the health authorities promising herd immunity (and end of lockdowns) after X% get vaccinated.

> Some of us also remember the health authorities promising herd immunity (and end of lockdowns) after X% get vaccinated.

Herd immunity was a key argument of the anti lockdown folks; the people responsible for the Great Barrington Declaration regularly claimed it was almost here. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4

"Despite widespread critique, the idea keeps popping up among politicians and policymakers in numerous countries, including Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. US President Donald Trump spoke positively about it in September, using the malapropism “herd mentality”. And even a few scientists have pushed the agenda. In early October, a libertarian think tank and a small group of scientists released a document called the Great Barrington Declaration. In it, they call for a return to normal life for people at lower risk of severe COVID-19, to allow SARS-CoV-2 to spread to a sufficient level to give herd immunity."

Fauci and others openly noted they didn’t know the exact amount of immunization needed to reach it - numbers given were openly stated to be an estimate - and we never hit the 80-90% numbers often speculatively thrown around. Variants then made things worse.

> Fauci and others openly noted they didn’t know the exact amount of immunization needed to reach it, and we never hit the 80-90% numbers speculatively thrown around. Variants then made things worse.

As I said... health authorities threw out numbers, making people believe, that as we reach <whatever number>, we'll be able to stop the lockdowns... so get vaccinated, you won't get sick (atleast with 90%+ chance), you won't transmit it to others and you'll "save grandma", and we'll be able to reopen soon.

> health authorities threw out numbers

They gave estimates - stated as such - based on existing knowledge about disease and vaccines.

They didn't just give estimates, they gave recommendations based on weak knowledge.

Yes, that's what you do when there are a lot of unknowns. You make an educated guess, based on the available information.

Some were wrong, like discouraging masking. Others were correct. Getting them all correct would've required a time machine.

IT folks should understand this pretty well. "Reboot your computer, it might help" is a recommendation based on weak knowledge, made with a wealth of experience behind it.

Weak evidence calls for more research not mandates in a free nation. If I wasn't sure if my prescription for fixing your computer would cause data loss or some other harm I might recommend you hold off or that we explore other options.

This thinking is great when you're not in an emergency. Less so when things are time-critical. Inaction has its own risks; in your analogy, rebooting and not rebooting have a risk of data loss, and our educated guess is that rebooting is the safer choice.

A more accurate analogy would be a cold call from an non-reputable source demanding you download and install a nightly patch which fixes a feature you don't have installed. And when you say NO! They contact your employer on linkedin and demand they fire you.

> The vaccine was mandatory for employment, and this young man has no recourse. Nobody is liable.

The CDC, the FDA, Biden, Harris, Fauci, Walensky, every pharmaceutical company, and every mainstream media channel claimed the vaccines prevented transmission.

To claim otherwise is just gaslighting.

Many of them went so far as to say it was 100% effective at preventing transmission, and those video clips are still out there if you believe otherwise.

> those video clips are still out there if you believe otherwise

Here, I'll link to what Fauci was saying; "might slow", "looming question", "early studies": https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/looming-question-...

No experts were giving statements that this was a sterilizing vaccine. The strongest claims on this front made were that the vaccines appeared in studies to reduce transmission of the original strain, by a hard-to-determine amount.

Looks like you still survived to write this comment. Without the vaccine, maybe you wouldn’t have been so lucky. I don’t know where you get your science, but all scientific studies calculated the efficacy against specific strains of the virus. Nobody ever claimed 94% efficacy against all future variants.

99.9% of people under 45 (that's like 1 year old info, probably much more with Omicron) unvaccinated people survive.

So, yeah.

Around 10 comments in this thread and not one remembers or points out that 94% effectiveness was for OG covid or whatever was circulating at the time. Then came delta, then came omicron. It's a different virus now (both in severity and ability to evade the vaccine).