I never intended to ever post but this needed comment.
I am so depressed about folk commenting on science like it is a debate. I would like to point out that, at least once, the post came with commentary, and the commentary is indeed disinformation.
The headline, cursory look at numbers may show that the more shots you have improve your chances of getting the virus and don't stop transmission. Any level of scientific understanding in the field would tell you both those statements are nonsense.
A vaccine almost never blocks transmission, what happens us that people do not get as sick, those infected are infected for less time, the virus is less virulent, and they produce less virus particles. All of that reduces the risk of severe illness and transmission, all working to reduce the R number so that, eventually the level of virus in the environment us reduced to minimal levels and outbreaks tens not to spread to even epidemic levels.
Vaccines don't prevent illness, they do tend to prevent deaths and mass illness.
The strapline to a lot of this stuff is that we need to learn to live with Covid. That the longer we go the milder the virus will become. Again, scientific understanding in the field tells you that both those statements are nonsense.
It is a myth that viruses attenuate over time. The story is that the virus adapts to its host, that it doesn't want to kill off the animal that hosts it. The truth is that the virus doesn't want anything. It simply reproduces. The changes that happen are random, we only see the "successful" variants, the ones that spread better than all the rest. Whether the one that spreads best is more or less lethal is entirely random. If we keep the level of Covid high, by not seeking to get it down to minimal levels, then we will continue to get more variants. Omicron is Covid crossed with the common cold virus (rhinovirus) which made it more transmissible. The longer we retain high levels the more likely it is we get a variant that is both transmissible as Omicron and as deadly as previous SARS diseases.
Gamers know that the most unlikely things will happen if we roll the dice often enough. The chance of the deadly pandemic is improbable, not impossible and the longer we choose to "live with Covid" increases the chances we will die with it. Keep rolling the dice lads... 😞
There is the strange thing of cherry picking numbers. Most folk in hospital may indeed be vaccinated, most cases of Covid may indeed be vaccinated (but only in countries where the vast majority of people have been vaccinated. If you look at the vaccinated and unvaccinated population, the unvaccinated will have a higher percentage who contract the disease and a much higher percentage that gets sick and dies. Again, gamers, and especially HERO gamers, should be better at running the numbers than this.
There is the point of people choosing to compare the disadvantages of being vaccinated against the baseline of normal life. Any medical intervention, even injecting sterile water, will result in poor outcomes (the placebo effect works both ways). But we are now in the situation where you need to compare getting Covid to getting vaccinated, the chance of remaining uninfected is tending toward zero. In all measures vaccinations are less risky than getting Covid.
Finally, in what is a massively longer post than I intended, there is the absolutely odd inclination of people in both the UK and US questioning the involvement of the private sector in the vaccination programme. Both countries tend to think the private sector is more efficient than government, and the people taking this line mostly come from the political wing that is more anti-government than anti-corporation. I tend to agree that these companies should not own the vaccines, the profit motive restricts rather than includes and slows down the distribution of vaccines worldwide. We should not be donating doses of vaccine, we should be allowing the third world to make their own and, while utilising the infrastructure of big pharma, should not be adding to their bottom line by paying profits on necessary, global and potentially perennial vaccination programmes.
I may now have said all I need to. Hope this passes moderation....
