People may be overestimating the vaccine's power

This article describes how the vaccine may not be the cure-all panacea that most of the public thinks it will be.

Those who have been vaccinated might not show the most severe symptoms, but they could still get infected and then spread the virus to others.
In other words, the vaccine might protect the individual taking it more than it will help other people from being infected by that individual.

With a little luck and a lot of science, the world might in the not-too-distant future get vaccines against Covid-19. But those vaccines won't necessarily prevent all or even most infections.

In the public imagination, vaccines are often seen effectively as cure-alls, like inoculations against measles.

Rather than those vaccines, however, the Covid-19 vaccines in development may be more like those that protect against influenza - reducing the risk of contracting the disease, and of experiencing severe symptoms should infection occur, a number of experts told STAT.

"We all recognize that flu vaccine, in a year when it’s efficacious, you have what, 50% protection? And in a year when it’s poor you have 30% or less than that - and still we use that," said Marie-Paule Kieny, who is chairing a committee advising the French government on vaccines to prevent Covid-19.

Ideally, vaccines would prevent infection entirely, inducing what's known as "sterilizing immunity." But early work on some of the vaccine candidates suggests they may not stop infection in the upper respiratory tract - and they may not stop an infected person from spreading virus by coughing or speaking.

A recently released study in which macaques were vaccinated with one vaccine candidate - this one being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca - showed the primates were protected from Covid-induced pneumonia. But the macaques still had high levels of virus replicating in their upper airways.​

The world may be overestimating the power of Covid-19 vaccines (statnews.com)


In addition to that, most of these vaccine studies have not specifically looked at whether the vaccine protects the most vulnerable segment of the population - the ones who would have the highest statistical probability of dying from the virus.
It could easily be, for example, that the vaccine only prevents symptoms from manifesting in more healthy people - individuals who would have little chance of dying from it in the first place.
If that's the case, it's left to be asked how "effective" these vaccines actually are.
"95% effective" won't really mean anything if that 5% that it's not effective for are the exact same 5% of the population who are the most vulnerable and at risk of dying.

 

Everyone is going to be told they must remain permanently under the heel of totalitarians and that all middle class small business must be destroyed entirely - and most people will believe it such as the OPer obviously will.

 

Indeed, this description may be substantially true, hopefully the results will be better, vyt that is not guaranteed.

Uh, no, not at all.

And the current 25 year trend of middle class small business being destroyed is an artifact of the large businesses and oligarchs laws and policies being applied by the power block operating the USA, particularly in that time. The effects from the current pandemic is just one more nail in the coffin of regular Americans and their own businesses.

This current idea that Americans need to add a higher death and disability rate in order to do business is particularly laughable.

 

There is a growing number of weekly new cases in my area yet I am starting to see more and more people not wearing masks. I little WTF are you thinking!!!! but whatever.

 

A frightened and terrorized populace will be desperate for any sliver of hope. That's what we have now. Desperation is a cultured emotion.

It's great for profits for Pharma.

 

This guy's name is Del Bigtree, and he makes some interesting observations. Del speaks to the way the efficacy testing achieves the 95% rating, he explains that they test in such a way that they overlook look symptoms early in testing, preferring to wait until the symptoms have abated before logging results.

Del has his own site, it is called "The Highwire", hosting videos outside of YouTube (which has of recent begun cracking down and censoring many videos having to do with and critical of the vaccine and the coronavirus pandemic).

The following linked video relates to the above efficacy testing:

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COVID-19 VACCINE? - The Highwire

 

We have people convinced masks will save them and save the world, "overestimating the vaccine's power" might be the least of our worries, and it might be the only way to get some folks to ever leave their houses again.

For the people who believe a mask will save their life, imagine the psychological power a vaccine would have.

 

Well, the effectiveness of the vaccines which have been and which are going to be approved is around 95% ...

For the 95% of the population Covid-19 is not a lethal disease, so I would like to see more detailed data regarding the age of the persons who have received the vaccines during the phase of testing.

If the vaccines save the individuals who are anyway going to save themselves naturally ... they are not great vaccines, to say the least.

Anyway, in EU the vaccination campaign has started, it takes two jabs and about 28 days to obtain the immunity. Let's wait and see.
I'm enough healthy and not old to have to wait enough [substantially until next summer] before of getting the vaccine, so that I will have all the time to realize if the individuals who they are vaccinating now will survive or not ...

 

This is why I'm not taking off my mask until at least the second vaccine shot.

 

My area (of which ~78% of our voters were Republican) was never short on anti-masker trash people but after the election results clearly indicated a loss for Pres Trump the belligerent defiance of my fellow citizens kicked into overdrive. I believe it to be fueled by a combination of butthurt that their man lost, by ignorance of what a vaccine can do and how fast it will take to do it, and just pure selfish laziness and the inability to stay the course because putting a piece of cloth over one's face is just soooooooo taxing.

 

Masks should stay on throughout 2021, without question. I'd personally love it if they would become a staple in our culture for flu season and worn whenever one is sick in general. Personally I have zero intentions to enter stores anytime soon. Curbside and online shopping have become so convenient, I'm all about that app life now. And with the money I've saved (and pounds I've shed) from not eating at restaurants once the entire 2020 year I don't see much good reason to break that habit either.

 

The worry is that too many people wont get it thereby becoming, just as with masks, a chain breaking weakness.

 

Gee! Do you even realize that your article is from May 22nd, 2020, when the vaccines were in their infancy??? They were in animal studies at the time; all that your article said is speculation.

Then we got to the REAL efficacy results... and they are around 95% for the Pfizer and the Moderna, way better than these experts in your article anticipated.

Yes, we don't know yet if the vaccine will avoid disease but won't avoid the state of being a carrier. But chances are that it will, because much later after this article from May, we found that the mRNA vaccines were fostering neutralizing antibodies, and were actually showing more immunogenicity than the natural infection itself.

So, it turns out that the vaccine may very well be way more protective against the carrier state than anticipated.

By the way, your article is about the Oxford/AstraZeneca which does seem to be less efficacious. It's an adenovirus vector vaccine. The mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna appear to be way more efficacious than the Oxford/AstraZeneca, and they are the ones currently authorized for emergency use in the USA.

But sure, I'd recommend prudence even for vaccinated people. For one thing, we don't know yet for how long the immunity lasts. So, keeping the social distancing and the masks for a while even for vaccinated people would be prudent. But my hope is that by the summer or fall of 2021 we'll beat the virus with the vaccine and then we'll be able to go back to a quasi-normal life. For this to happen, though, sufficient number of people need to accept the vaccine.

 

Truely, psychological power can have quite an effect!

So that a wonderful boon to all of us as well to have the combination of real, medical power of both mask AND a 95% effective vaccine to make the coming year a wonderful place!

Happy Year to ALL of us!

 

Well after Biden is sworn in then everyone will automatically wear their mask right?

 

I live in blue city so that wouldn't explain why I am starting to see more people without masks.

 

Yea I can only give 'ears to the ground' commentary about my local area from experience and talk; Nextdoor app, Facebook groups, other social feeds, for a smallish county we're remarkably connected.

 

And I can only give mine based on my less than 50K city, blue city, that is slowly but steadily adding fiber to the many other options. Regardless, I am seeing more people shunning masks. I have talked to others who have seen it in their day to day observations in other parts of the city as well. Maybe they already had it. IDK. It is just odd to me especially in the face of rising local new infection rates over the last month. No real rhyme or reason. Some are black, some are white, some are men, some are women, some are younger, some are older. Maybe they think the arrival of vaccines makes it safer for them all of the sudden. IDK.

 

Personally I think these restrictions will be here for decades to come. I am not old and I might not see their end in my lifetime.