I’ll be happy to take a “bad flu”. Since I get a regular flu shot every year. My 3 Covid vaccines still haven’t added up to the number of flu shots I’ve received over the years.
I still think that the Covid vaccine is helping me from getting extremely ill, draining our medical resources and dying. Besides the money to treat Covid, I’m helping by not being a burden on our system.
My S is getting on a plane next week to study abroad for spring semester. He is vaxxed and boosted and hiding out in our home with the hopes he doesn’t test positive the day of his flight. We have all been basically home bound.
Not what he wanted for his travel abroad experience, but this is his only chance to go.
As far as those not getting vaccinated, I’m done with them. We have a few in our family and it’s hard to hide my disdain at this point.
The conversation was about both. See the Sept 2020 article above, for example.
And vaccines do mitigate the spread of Covid.
No. The vaccines, with booster, are 75% effective against infection. And they also lessen the risk of severe disease, death, hospitalization.
Here is the part of the CDC quote left out by @OhiBro above:
A COVID-19 vaccine booster dose restores vaccine effectiveness against infection to 75%. COVID-19 vaccination decreases the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. CDC strongly encourages COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 5 and older and boosters for everyone 16 and older. Vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and reduce the impact of COVID-19 on our communities.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s1227-isolation-quarantine-guidance.html
It drives me nuts when people like @OhiBro are misrepresentative like that. What’s the purpose? Serious question.
Sources, please.
None off the top of my head, sorry. Just common knowledge. Understanding virus adaptations/mutations. Eventually a variant will be completely resistant to the current vaccines. No one knows when, could be today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now. We are just holding our breath and hoping technology can keep up and quickly produce a targeted vaccine once a variant that completely evades current vaccines does indeed rear its ugly head.
In the third paragraph, they address two different scenarios, vaccine-driven antigenic escape and vaccine-driven virulence evolution. Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens
WHO seems to agree:
Right, and as noted, there are large parts of the world where vaccines are in short supply, but the political opposition to vaccines is absolutely contributing to this. And I have to wonder if that camp will one day look back and realize the great harm this caused.
Nah, they’ll claim virus-resistant strains developed due to the lack of prescriptions of a certain medication. 
Yeah but, at some point the facts have to become facts again. Science has to take over. I can’t believe there are so many people still touting “alternate truths” (yes, like that med as cure).
With so many countries around the world with so low of vaccination rates it really doesn’t matter if we reach 100% vaccinated here. A new variant could develop in any of these spots.
It does matter. In the interim lives will be saved, and we will be able to live closer to normal lives. And even where vaccines haven’t worked as well at preventing infection from new variants, they have been effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization, death, etc., so a high vaccination rate here may still crucial to saving lives and preventing spread even in the face of further variants.
As for world wide vaccinations, we need to do more.
I was speaking specifically to new variants and the chance that one could develop that eludes our current vaccines.
Obviously vaccinations are currently very effective at preventing many instances and reducing the effects for those that have breakthrough infections.
yes, more US lives would be saved with a higher US vax rate, but no, no way we would get closer to normal lives as long as much of the world remains unvaccinated. Even if the US picked up the costs, it would take years to vaccinate billions of people. In the meantime, variants would continue to evade vaccines, requiring more ‘boosters’. Rinse adn repeat for the RoW.
We’d be a lot more normal if more folks had gotten vaxxed when they could have. No doubt Covid would remain in the world, but here in the US not overwhelming the hospitals would have been a very welcome difference and there’s no doubt if essentially everyone had been vaccinated that would have been different. There were plenty of stories about how 80, 90, 95% hospitalized were unvaxxed, esp serious cases. I suspect it’s still the case.
I guess there’s some consolation knowing most who die post vax reduce the group of those inclined to believe misinformation instead of pure luck of the draw, but I’d rather have things be more normal.
In a relatively short period, over 9 billion doses have been given. It seems if the richest countries in the world made it their top priority, we could get this done-not to bring cases to zero, but to significantly reduce the chances for a catastrophic mutation.
@Creekland I agree with you a lot and at times I don’t, but I usually find you to be respectful. I do not find this comment helpful in any way and I will never feel “consolation” over anyones death, no matter the cause or the reason. It’s these kind of comments that further the divide.
Seems like @Creekland 's consolation was that worse COVID-19 outcomes now are mostly concentrated in those who now voluntarily choose to play COVID-19 lottery (or the version with a greater chance of the bigger negative prizes) by refusing vaccination, rather than being more randomly distributed. I.e. it is closer to a personal choice with personal responsibility situation than it was before vaccines, although it is not quite that way due to the overloading of hospitals and imposition of medical care costs paid by everyone (though government or private insurance).