News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by dalore on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:17AM (#37736217)
I'm not convinced.

If they didn't reduce transmission, but we were told they did, then we suffered the problem of moral hazard. We thought we were protected so we went out and caused more risk to us and others. Possibly increasing the number of deaths.

So I don't think they saved lives at all, they might have increased people's risk thinking they were protected and they weren't, also spreading it more.

They didn't allow us to open en-mass.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by dd36 on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:21AM (#37736258)
Good thing we have data that proves lives were saved and you don’t have to guess.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by logicchains on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:37AM (#37736401)
What data is that? That data on lockdowns suggests that they didn't reduce overall excess mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4737

>Using an event study approach and data from 43 countries and all U.S. states, we measure changes in excess deaths following the implementation of COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) policies. We do not find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier had lower excess deaths. We do not observe differences in excess deaths before and after the implementation of SIP policies, even when accounting for pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by jeffbee on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:35AM (#37737894)
Causality. The only thing this survey demonstrates is that government orders have weak effects on actual population behavior.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by dalore on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:43AM (#37736464)
Good thing you're 100% convinced, I'm still looking for the proof
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by amelius on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:02AM (#37737063)
Still you are the one making the exceptional claim, so the burden of proof is on you.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by urduntupu on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:23AM (#37736774)
"COVID-19 vaccine-associated mortality in the Southern Hemisphere", a well researched study [0] shows:

This experimental gene therapy has killed 17 million people and had no discernible benefit, according to a very sound study

[0] https://correlation-canada.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20...

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by chimprich on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:44AM (#37736919)
Please don't post this nonsense on HN. This is a joke, right? It's a crank website, not a serious medical journal.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by blumomo on Monday October 02, 2023 @01:27PM (#37741490)
Can you say something constructive about the study instead of insulting the messenger who published it?
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by notacoward on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:25AM (#37736291)
Related: https://www.natesilver.net/p/fine-ill-run-a-regression-analy...

There was a discussion here too, but it was hot garbage so I'm not linking to it.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by SamBam on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:48AM (#37737402)
The conclusion of that paper:

The higher the vaccination rate in a state, the lower the deaths after the vaccine was introduced. This is unaffected by the age of the state.

The fact that this shift only emerges after the introduction of the vaccine means we can pretty much rule out any demographics-based causes. The "low vax" and "high vax" states were pretty much even before the vaccine. The only reasonable conclusion is that high vax rates directly caused lower death rates.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by raverbashing on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:32AM (#37736348)
Reducing transmission is a bonus, and very hard to measure

Nobody will worry about transmission when it provably reduces mortality

> So I don't think they saved lives at all

Thank deity we have data proving otherwise

And even bigger thanks to Darwin who rarely disappoints

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by aredox on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:20AM (#37736247)
They did reduce transmission. We have actual data from US prisons.

If you want to look at dodgy science, anything around "moral hazards" is on very shaky grounds...

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by sod on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:27AM (#37736317)
If you have an interest in making your point, I suggest to reference trusted sources one can read through so people on the fence can educate themself.

Blaming and labelling has the opposite effect though.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:37AM (#37736396)
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-shots-previous-inf...

> Unvaccinated, infected inmates had an estimated 36% risk of spreading the virus, compared with 28% among infected vaccinees. After adjustment, any vaccination, previous infection alone, and both vaccination and previous infection cut the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission by 22%, 23%, and 40%, respectively.

> Booster doses and more recent vaccination further lowered infectiousness among vaccinated inmates, with each dose conferring an 11% risk reduction; the risk of transmission rose 6% for every 5 weeks that had elapsed since the last shot.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by dalore on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:31AM (#37736829)
I don't know about you, 8% sounds a rounding error and probably within the error margins. It certainly wasn't enough to open the country en-mass like the OP believes.

And now we have the opposite situation with those who have had the most boosters and now more likely to catch the new variant that is out.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:06AM (#37737084)
> I don't know about you, 8% sounds a rounding error and probably within the error margins.

It is not. The study is available for you to review if you like.

> And now we have the opposite situation with those who have had the most boosters and now more likely to catch the new variant that is out.

I’d like to see that study. Cite, please.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by Workaccount2 on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:02AM (#37739040)
>I’d like to see that study. Cite, please.

Sure:

www.NewEarthTimes.com/publications/VaccinesKill/New-vaccine-makes-more-infections.html

/this is a joke

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by nvm0n2 on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:28PM (#37745298)
> 8% sounds a rounding error and probably within the error margins.

It is not.

Erm yes it is ... from the study:

> In adjusted analyses, we estimated that any vaccination ... reduced an index case’s risk of transmitting infection by 22% (6–36%)

CI is much wider than 8pp and the estimated absolute transmission risk CIs actually overlap at 31%. So the study results are consistent with there being no actual difference, also.

If this is the best evidence of a difference in transmission it's not very good.

Also this is Omicron which hardly matters. The justification was the earlier variants.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by empath-nirvana on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:53AM (#37738125)
This is a classic example of the way conspiracy theorists shift goal posts and demand more and more evidence, while waving away any evidence provided. It's _boring_ to engage with people like you. You have no idea what you're talking about, and demand that people who _do_ know what they're talking about give you an education that you don't actually want. You're just _performing_, you aren't having a genuine conversation with people.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by shrubble on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:14AM (#37738424)
Out of 111,000 inmates, 31 were hospitalized and none died. Is there a small city with equivalent population where approximately the same numbers held?
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:17AM (#37738459)
I very much doubt there's a small city with total gender segregation, people living in large buildings they're not permitted to leave, and single-source universal healthcare.

(That's what makes it such a good observational study population; a whole bunch of variables are controlled away by default.)

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by aredox on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:39AM (#37736423)
Why should I do it, to "do your own research" types like you?

Do your own research.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by zo1 on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:42AM (#37736446)
I'm one of those people "on the fence". I can tell you now that honestly a good study won't convince me to trust the prevailing narrative.

Hear me out. In my mind, there are so many reasonable and logical ways in which those studies can be manipulated and interpreted in a manner that goes a certain direction (that I'm distrustful of). The reason I'm there is that a lot of trust was lost over a long period of time and multiple instances. So a whole host of related side-issues need to be resolved and "proven" false with studies before I can get back to a high-trust zone with modern medicine when it comes to covid and other such "hot" topics.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ggm on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:03AM (#37736598)
You may want to avoid casting all questions through this lens. Some people seek to leverage this sense of loss of trust to promote other arguments, in politics and the economy.

I appreciate that loss of trust is real, happens fast, and takes longer to recover. Recovery itself demands some acceptance that not all evidence is unequivocal, or comprehensible.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by noarchy on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:41AM (#37738768)
>I'm one of those people "on the fence".

Versus

>I can tell you now that honestly a good study won't convince me to trust the prevailing narrative.

You're not on the fence.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by zo1 on Monday October 02, 2023 @01:26PM (#37741481)
Oh you got me there! I'll pack it up, my argument is void now, you win.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by nicman23 on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:49AM (#37736501)
the fact that antivaxers never source data but instead require normal sane people to do so will never not make me laugh
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by Lutger on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:54AM (#37736529)
Respectfully, I believe you are in the wrong here.

Covid and climate science denial can be strengthened by having a 'discussion'.

This is because conspiracy thinking is actually immune to evidence. The denialist will subvert your evidence in a way that it proves the conspiracy. In here they will probably complain that 'correlation is not causation' or some other methodology 101 trope, whereas the audience will think "oh, yeah, this is complicated, smart people are debating it, I guess the jury is still out and we don't know for certain if climate change is real or not, and the vaccines are not a silver bullet either, lets just wait until the debate is over'.

But, in fact, the debate is over.

So no, in this case the onus is one the person attacking a vast body of scientific literature proving beyond reasonable doubt that vaccines are effective to come up with something supporting those wild claims. It is not up to me to provide a literature list that nobody will ever read anyway, and anyone who is even remotely interested in finding the truth can google such a list in 5 min.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by kuerbel on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:49AM (#37737420)
Thank you for your post. And I mean it. I've fallen into this trap so often myself, because nothing grinds my gears as conspiracy theorists do. I think next time I'll stop before I answer, think of your post and maybe copypaste it.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by sod on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:52AM (#37737437)
All I did was asking for information. After all, science is about studies and data, not about opinion.

It would just be nice to get a finger pointing in a direction, not the middlefinger.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:59AM (#37737494)
At this point, anyone still "asking for information" knows full well where to find it. It's not March 2020 any more.

"Actual data from US prisons" took me about 20 seconds to find a reputable source for (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37736396), likely less time than your comment asking for it took to type.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by sod on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:15AM (#37737650)
> At this point, anyone still "asking for information" knows full well where to find it. It's not March 2020 any more.

Do you really think that behavior will improve the knowledge gap?

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:41AM (#37737973)
I don't think any behavior will help the willfully ignorant.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by empath-nirvana on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:50AM (#37738091)
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by fabian2k on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:24AM (#37736287)
The vaccines massively reduced mortality and severe disease in the vulnerable populations. That is a big win.

They also could have stopped the spread for the early variants, but the later ones were simply too contagious. There simply was no chance to keep transmission fully down at that point.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by koolba on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:41AM (#37736433)
> The vaccines massively reduced mortality and severe disease in the vulnerable populations. That is a big win.

That’s changing the goalposts. The vaccines were not necessary for the vast majority of the population or society as a whole to “open up”.

That’s assuming you analyze only physical harm from the spreading virus. After months of brainwashing, they were definitely required for large swathes of the population to given them a mental protection to come out of their shells.

> They also could have stopped the spread for the early variants, but the later ones were simply too contagious. There simply was no chance to keep transmission fully down at that point.

There was never a chance to keep transmission fully down. It was like trying to prevent a cold or the flu from spreading.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by fabian2k on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:46AM (#37736486)
The criteria for the original license were the reduction in deaths and disease. Transmission wasn't even tested in the original phase III trials. The vaccines achieved their primary purpose, they prevented death and severe disease.

COVID was a major threat to a significant part of the population. The vaccines were effective and reduced the threat to those people enormously.

It would have been very nice and useful to stop transmission and achieve herd immunity. But even without that the vaccines were a huge win and saved a lot of lives.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by somenameforme on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:37AM (#37738714)
This is false. Moderna seems to have moved, or removed, their initial testing results but you can still find an archive here. [1] The pharmaceutical industry was initially claiming that vaccination would completely prevent infection, as it typically does, let alone spread:

"There were 11 COVID‑19 cases in the Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95% confidence interval of 89.3% to 96.8%)."

It's easy to create false memories because the politicians and pharma industry simultaneously swapped the narrative to stopping hospitalization and death once it became completely clear the vaccines were not stopping infection, but that is not what their initial purpose was.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210202223626/https://www.moder...

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:52AM (#37738902)
Your quote: "Some of the vaccine group still got infected."

Your summary: "They claimed vaccination would completely prevent infection."

Perhaps you just can't read?

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by somenameforme on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:05AM (#37739092)
The efficacy rate was not being measured based on death/sickness, but on any infection at all. It was supposed to be 94.1% effective in terms of completely preventing infection.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by ceejayoz on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:09AM (#37739134)
Again, I think you're having trouble reading. From your link:

> The median length of follow up for efficacy for participants in the study was 9 weeks post Dose 2. There were 11 COVID‑19 cases in the Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine group and 185 cases in the placebo group, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95% confidence interval of 89.3% to 96.8%).

> Cases of COVID‑19, starting 14 days after Dose 2, were defined as symptomatic COVID‑19 requiring positive RT-PCR result and at least two systemic symptoms or one respiratory symptom.

A SARS-CoV-2 infection and a COVID-19 case aren't the same thing, for the same reason a HIV infection is not the same as having AIDS. The 94.1% number comes from counts of actual sickness, despite your assertions to the contrary.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by somenameforme on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:22AM (#37739311)
Feel free to change the above to claim they stated it would create a negative PCR test or a PCR test with less than 1 one respiratory symptom or 2 systemic symptoms. It does not meaningfully change the issue whatsoever. The asterisk by infection went, without skipping a beat, from a 'PCR test and symptoms' to 'hospitalization/death.' These are very different things.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by fabian2k on Monday October 02, 2023 @03:49PM (#37743522)
The virus the vaccine was first tested is quite different than the version we faced later. The virus is not a static target, but a quickly evolving one. And the later variants were far, far more contagious than the initial one.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by Lutger on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:59AM (#37736566)
> That’s changing the goalposts.

You complain about that, but proceed to doing it yourself, and you don't even address the point unlike the person you responded to.

> It was like trying to prevent a cold or the flu from spreading.

Which is funny, because even the very mild measures we had here in the Netherlands totally succeeded in preventing the flu from spreading. Haven't had a cold or flu in 1.5 years whereas normally would be sick at least 2-3 times. One strain of the flu was completely eradicated.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by empath-nirvana on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:48AM (#37738060)
> After months of brainwashing

When you say stuff like this, it makes me think you have the wrong idea about who was the victim of brainwashing.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by somenameforme on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:03AM (#37739054)
It sounds hyperbolic but look at any poll on how deadly people thought COVID was compared to how deadly it actually was. This study [1] found people believing that, on average, about 16% of people infected (diagnosed or not) with COVID died. In reality, there were a measured total of around 700 million cases and 7 million deaths. And vast numbers of cases went undiagnosed and so would never have ended up being tracked. In any case, the real IFR was well less than 1%. Brain washing is an unnecessarily loaded and divisive term, but it is safe to say that the media (and politicians) actively went out of their way to make people believe things that were not true, and they succeeded.

[1] - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.6191...

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by jf22 on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:55AM (#37739795)
Public perception and reality are often at odds, but it doesn't mean the difference in perception is because of brainwashing, it's because humans are bad at measuring risk.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by koolba on Monday October 02, 2023 @01:11PM (#37741203)
If the ones who are supposed to be informing the masses are deliberately feeding them information that leads them to inaccurately measure said risk, then that’s brainwashing.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by somenameforme on Monday October 02, 2023 @01:29PM (#37741519)
I'd argue you're creating a bit of a false dichotomy there. I completely agree that the public is bad at measuring risk. But do you disagree that the media/politicians were actively working to exaggerate the impact of the disease? And really this even applied to organizations like the CDC. Read this [1] page and tell me how long you think it'd take the average person to realize they're talking about child hospitalizations with COVID and not child hospitalizations from COVID?

The "summary" of the article is that "COVID-19 can cause severe illness in children and adolescents" followed by numbers talking about a shocking increase in rates. The fact it's talking about people hospitalized with COVID is hidden in a wall of text written in language that most people wouldn't be able to decipher. That more people tested positive for a more contagious variant, in any setting, is the most unremarkable news imaginable - spun into a terrifying headline, by the CDC no less.

I see no way to imagine that article was written in good faith. And it's been the absolute norm for the past 3 years now.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7036e2.htm

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by kibbi on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:44AM (#37736920)
> The vaccines massively reduced mortality and severe disease in the vulnerable populations.

By how much, in numbers?

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by Lutger on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:43AM (#37736455)
Any sources or data to back that up? Or is this just your own hypothesis you came up with yourself?

There is an enormous body of knowledge proving vaccines did reduce transmissions, you can easily find them online. So a claim that goes counter to the outcome of hundreds of studies should have some backup, otherwise it no better than saying 'here is a snowball that proves 100% of climate scientists are wrong'

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by goodluckchuck on Monday October 02, 2023 @09:02AM (#37737524)
You also are not providing any sources or data…
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by d0100 on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:26AM (#37738567)
From my time of internet arguing about vaccines, most "reduce transmission" claims started at 70% and last I remember ended up being only 30%
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by someuser2345 on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:31AM (#37739424)
Here is a paper that claims that there was no correlation between vaccination rates and an increase in covid cases: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481107/
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by usrusr on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:09AM (#37736645)
What would have been the alternative? Go endemic Bergamo-style? Remain in soft lockdown for a decade or two in order to go endemic at a very slow pace? At the time vaccines were widely available, chances of making the virus die out had already been at exactly zero for quite a while (well, zero, plus wherever the chances are for a sudden all life ending meteor strike). It was vaccines that allowed us come to where we are now with the amount of inconvenience we had on the way. Any path without vaccines would have been worse, one way or the other.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by amelius on Monday October 02, 2023 @08:06AM (#37737082)
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by dekhn on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:46AM (#37738837)
Are you a scientist, or otherwise qualified to make judgements like this?

I see a lot of armchair quarterbacks making statements about public health, but it ussually ends up being poorly informed speculation.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by forgetfreeman on Monday October 02, 2023 @10:47AM (#37738852)
Oh there's certainly moral hazard for all of the muppets that fell in line with the interlocking "reopen" astroturf campaigns that cropped up during the lockdown, but it isn't due to false or misleading claims about vaccine efficacy. It was made clear from jump that 1. the vaccines did not confer perfect immunity and 2. continuous mutation meant the goalposts for protection were moving. Individuals that chose to accept either the narrative that we were all perfectly safe once vaccinated or that there was nothing to worry about in the first place because it was all a giant conspiracy are collectively responsible for Covid making the transition from pandemic to endemic.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by astrange on Monday October 02, 2023 @02:37PM (#37742515)
It's impossible that covid could ever have not become endemic. It can transmit through animals, we're not going to vaccinate or kill all the animals, and we haven't found the source it actually came from.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by forgetfreeman on Monday October 02, 2023 @06:46PM (#37745495)
Bullshit. There was a window of time where hard quarantine could have prevented it. Instead we got politics.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by astrange on Monday October 02, 2023 @07:34PM (#37745920)
Only if no person or animal ever left China ever again.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by forgetfreeman on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @07:31PM (#37758977)
Bullshit. We have the ability to screen individuals before travel.
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by astrange on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @06:40AM (#37763251)
No you don't, covid is infectious before it's symptomatic. Australia and China tried the closest working thing to that (incoming quarantine) and it was extremely expensive and eventually failed.

China also claims they've found it in fomites (inanimate objects) like frozen food shipments. Though, I dunno if I believe that one.

Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by forgetfreeman on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @04:29PM (#37771273)
Closest working thing is an interestingly loaded phrase
Re:Nobel Price in Medicine goes to development of mRNA vaccines by thehappypm on Monday October 02, 2023 @11:24AM (#37739348)
Ultimately, none of the societal restrictions really helped reduce the portion of the population that caught covid -- given enough time, it ended up rounding up to 100%, almost worldwide. Restrictions and masking really just bought us some time and slowed the process of getting to "everyone got infected". Even China, New Zealand, Australia, etc failed at zero-covid given enough time, and covid raged once it got out. Different states in the US with vastly different policies ended up with the same final outcome. According to the NY Times, Florida and New York both have 35k cases cases per 100k population -- obviously there are substantial differences in data quality, but we are clearly not looking at an order-of-magnitude difference between these two massively different responses.

Given that lens, the ultimate outcome of the pandemic is "almost everyone eventually gets covid." As a result, the vaccines -- in reducing mortality -- saved an absolutely immense amount of lives.