Lurker 1 Wrote:
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> I can't believe any study that states the vaccine
> does much in preventing either infection or
> disease in the vaccinated.
You start your post by saying your opinion is based on anecdotal evidence. That can sometimes be useful for some objectives but not in every circumstance.
> It is not what I am seeing in my area.
There is a significant drawback to basing judgement only on anecdotal input and/or one's own (limited in many ways) experience. It is often not a comprehensive study of a situation, confined only to what a person witnesses or hears, likely a small sample size indeed as well as providing incomplete/limited information about any given situation.
Here in B.C. this is what they're saying about rates of vaccination and infection as well as the best medical science recommendations going forward:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/unvaccinated-vaccinated-covid-data-bc-1.6151008Excerpts:
“Unvaccinated in B.C. hospitalized with COVID-19 at a rate 17 times higher than fully vaccinated.
“New vaccine data provided by the B.C. government shows the province's fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is primarily — though not exclusively — a pandemic among the unvaccinated.
“Of the 113 new hospitalizations for COVID-19 between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16, 95 were among people completely unvaccinated, compared to just 12 for fully vaccinated people and six who were partly vaccinated.
“During that time frame, approximately 1.45 million British Columbians were unvaccinated, meaning 25 per cent of the province was responsible for 84 per cent of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“Adjusted for population, 6.56 unvaccinated people per 100,000 in B.C. were hospitalized that week compared to 0.37 per 100,000 who were fully vaccinated, a rate 17.7 times higher.
"It just reduces that likelihood of becoming infected to a great degree," said University of British Columbia mathematician Daniel Coombs, who has advised the B.C. government on its modelling projections and is co-lead of the B.C. COVID-19 modelling group.
"It's hard to say exactly how much it helps, but basically people who have been vaccinated, they seem to be considerably less infectious than people who are not vaccinated."
“The data … is similar to what has been observed in other provinces that release the figures on a daily basis.
"The science is clear," said B.C.'s Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry on Monday, giving a brief overview of the numbers…
“[they want to encourage] unvaccinated people to register for a shot, [which] further decrease[s] the risk of vaccinated people becoming infected in public areas.
"And with the number of people who have been vaccinated, this also means that the restrictions can be a little milder and more targeted."
The latter objective, of course, is much welcomed by everyone. If infection rates are higher in one location then additional measures are implemented there only, avoiding total shutdown or mandating all measures in the entire province when the problem is only in a smaller area.
Lurker 1:
>I do believe it will keep the symptoms down, flatten the curve, and keep the emergency rooms and ICU's available for real emergencies.
The 'it' you refer to is vaccination, from your context. The experts have said from the beginning these are indeed their major objectives in rolling out the mandates (masks, distancing) and developing the vaccines.
Doesn't it seem like these are major life-saving achievements made possible by vaccinating the population?
In some areas, if more people were vaccinated, thereby avoiding infection or minimizing symptoms if infected and stopping spread (masks) we wouldn't be hearing about ER and ICU wards being over-full and not accepting even urgent cases such as cancer patients in crisis and those with other severe illnesses. That is one of the first reasons given at the beginning of the pandemic for governments adopting the preventive measures they have done.
>Wearing a mask, if it is even
> effective, only protects those adults who choose
> to not be vaccinated.
Masks are effective. This has been a proven protective measure in medicine for longer than we've been alive. (Think Spanish flu - 1918).
The principles of infection have been known since the early-mid 1800s (Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister).
The knowledge about quarantine/distancing is evident from at least the 1660s (Eyam - "Village of the Damned") when the villagers shut themselves off from human contact to avoid spreading the Black Death (plague).
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35064071As for your point about masks only protecting those who choose not to be vaccinated, I don't follow your reasoning here.
Lurker 1:
> And related to masks, "If masks work, why aren't
> they working?"
They *are* working. If people use them correctly, as mentioned in a post above.
I live in an area that had a high infection rate at the beginning of the pandemic. My turn for vaccination was way in the future. I limited my activities to only necessary ones and always wore a mask when out and about in public. There were many activities I put on hold as well as socialization in person. Despite a significant risk in my community, due to the high rates of disease occurrence, I managed to avoid getting infected, as did many others, in no small part because a mask mandate came in early and most people complied.
There are reasons why infection rates continue and indeed increase at the present time. This can be seen in the percentage of population vaccinated (too low in some areas) and the fact that in many areas masks are not mandated or a significant percentage of people don't comply.
Jumping to a conclusion that vaccines and masks don't work because infections continue to occur is not logical nor accurate.
As above, I don't grasp your point about how masks only protect the unvaccinated. But doesn't that belie your other comment about how masks aren't working?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2021 07:55PM by Nightingale.