Understand, we're in the second epidemic and headed for the third. Plans made on the basis of the original virus may not be valid. "The enemy get a vote", as the military says.
The original virus had a R0 rate of about 3, that is, in normal conditions, each infected person infects three others. That's about what the first generation of vaccines could control well enough that eventually the virus would die out.
The delta variant has an R0 of about 8. The current vaccines can slow down the spread, but not stop it. Which is why we've had a second epidemic. By last August, delta variant cases were 90% of the cases seen.
We don't know enough about the omicron variant yet.
Which means, vaccination doesn't works. Sounds like the antivaccers are right(?)
When you want to see it like this, we will never know enough to do anything. The only thing we can do with things that we can't change is to accept it. It's time to do...
No, vaccinations prevent you from getting sick. It’s the choice between a mild illness and potentially being admitted into the hospital.
What we’re starting to see is potential for further variants to evade antibodies, reproduce inside you and thus you spread it. Your immune system is still able to fight the virus easier because the vaccine has trained your immune system to look out for contagions like this virus but for a while you’re still actively spreading the virus before you’ve cleared it from your system.
Fully vaccinated people still get hospitalized and some times die. If you are old or have comorbidity, even the vaccine won't save you. We need to get off this vaccine obsession and start working on early treatments.
Yes. Here's some tabular data on hospitalizations and deaths vs. vaccination status[1] Those are easy to monitor. How well vaccination prevents infection is harder to determine.
Also remember, this is still the first generation of vaccines. There are some nasal spray vaccines in testing which look to be much more effective in preventing infection.
"The Delta variant is now replacing all other SARS-CoV-2 variants. We found a mean R0 of 5.08, which is much higher than the R0 of the ancestral strain of 2.79. Rapidly ramping up vaccine coverage rates while enhancing public health and social measures is now even more urgent and important."
> Given that the reproductive number in the studies identified here was estimated at a time when most countries still enforce a variable extent of lockdown measures, there is a risk that the real reproductive number may be even higher than the estimated 5.08.
The original virus had a R0 rate of about 3, that is, in normal conditions, each infected person infects three others. That's about what the first generation of vaccines could control well enough that eventually the virus would die out.
The delta variant has an R0 of about 8. The current vaccines can slow down the spread, but not stop it. Which is why we've had a second epidemic. By last August, delta variant cases were 90% of the cases seen.
We don't know enough about the omicron variant yet.