If You Have Been Vaccinated, Have You Changed Your Behavior?

[Tamas]

I think expecting that we can prevent most of the population from ever catching covid is hopeless at this stage, unless we remain in a global lockdown for years or something.

What we can realistically hope for is to prevent most most of the population from ending up hospitalised by it. Vaccines seem to be achieving that. They won't prevent everyone from being hospitalised and dying of it, sadly, but over the years the virus should mutate into the nasty case of flue the deniers made it out to be and we will live with it washing through us annually like the flu.

But, that has little to do with becoming a careless jerk once you have had your jab. Social distancing and mask wearing will phase out by a combination of government decree and group behaviour but in the meantime, especially with so many people still not vaccinated, the right thing to do is follow the rules.

[alfred russel]

An odd result to consider immune someone who can still be infected and pass on that infection - in the context of a world wide pandemic.

If your standard for "immune" requires absolute protection from any infection from everyone who has received the vaccine in the population, there is a very short list of vaccines (maybe zero) in history that have ever made someone "immune".

These vaccines are about as good as it gets.

You might have missed it but this thread is about how people will conduct themselves after they get vaccinated.  That has a lot to do with passing on infections to others.  Unless you are a person who does not think of others.

In case you missed it, the vaccines are extremely effective, and a much greater public health problem than fully vaccinated people not wearing masks is vaccine hesitancy.

You started the pandemic out by questioning whether covid was really worse than the flu, and are now challenging the effectiveness of the vaccines to provide immunity. Stop it.

[Sheilbh]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

[Tamas]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

Yeah if less effective against a variant means less effective at preventing catching it but equally effective at preventing hospitalisation, then I think that's a perfectly good result.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah if less effective against a variant means less effective at preventing catching it but equally effective at preventing hospitalisation, then I think that's a perfectly good result.

Yeah and so far that only seems to really be an issue with the South African variant - and I expect we'll have booster shots for it by the autumn.

[crazy canuck]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

I think that is true.  But the key word there is reduce - not eliminate.  herd immunity will occur when a sufficient number of people receive the vaccine so that the virus cannot spread.  But we are a long way from that or anyone thinking they are currently "immune" because they received the jab.  We will likely start approaching that by Juneish.

[crazy canuck]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

Yeah if less effective against a variant means less effective at preventing catching it but equally effective at preventing hospitalisation, then I think that's a perfectly good result.

The concern is not so much the current variants, but given the speed this thing mutates, what comes next.

[Sheilbh]

I think that is true.  But the key word there is reduce - not eliminate.  herd immunity will occur when a sufficient number of people receive the vaccine so that the virus cannot spread.  But we are a long way from that or anyone thinking they are currently "immune" because they received the jab.  We will likely start approaching that by Juneish.

Yes - but I actually wonder if the slightly cautious communication around vaccines fuels vaccine hesitancy. In the US from what I see there seems to still be a bit of negativity or people being, in my view, too cautious about them in public and I think that's possibly because they don't want people to stop with masks and distancing now. But I feel like if what they hear is we'll be doing that and living with restrictions forever that'll increase reluctance to get vaccinated - because what's the point. I think part of it is an understandable reluctance to over-promise but, from what I see, it feels like people are under-promising to the point that it might turn people off.

I think that view is wrong. But I think it's where messaging needs to come in and the message should be that the vaccines are great, they're doing better than we realised when they were approved and they're our way out of this. This may just be my perceptions based on who I follow in the US, but I do think they need a bit more boosterism about the vaccines.

[crazy canuck]

I think that is true.  But the key word there is reduce - not eliminate.  herd immunity will occur when a sufficient number of people receive the vaccine so that the virus cannot spread.  But we are a long way from that or anyone thinking they are currently "immune" because they received the jab.  We will likely start approaching that by Juneish.

Yes - but I actually wonder if the slightly cautious communication around vaccines fuels vaccine hesitancy. In the US from what I see there seems to still be a bit of negativity or people being, in my view, too cautious about them in public and I think that's possibly because they don't want people to stop with masks and distancing now. But I feel like if what they hear is we'll be doing that and living with restrictions forever that'll increase reluctance to get vaccinated - because what's the point. I think part of it is an understandable reluctance to over-promise but, from what I see, it feels like people are under-promising to the point that it might turn people off.

I think that view is wrong. But I think it's where messaging needs to come in and the message should be that the vaccines are great, they're doing better than we realised when they were approved and they're our way out of this. This may just be my perceptions based on who I follow in the US, but I do think they need a bit more boosterism about the vaccines.

The middle ground is if we get herd immunity through vaccinations we can lift restrictions forever, so everyone get vaccinated.

[merithyn]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

I think that is true.  But the key word there is reduce - not eliminate.  herd immunity will occur when a sufficient number of people receive the vaccine so that the virus cannot spread.  But we are a long way from that or anyone thinking they are currently "immune" because they received the jab.  We will likely start approaching that by Juneish.

I don't think anyone is "immune", but I do believe that being vaccinated has so far shown that I am not likely to get nor transmit the virus. That's not nothing.

[crazy canuck]

Isn't there a fair amount of evidence emerging that the vaccines are effective at reducing transmission (including asymptomatic transmission)?

It wasn't a big point of the clinical trials but that's because it wasn't a focus at the time - a bit like the 3 week dosing regime wasn't based on anything scientific it was done so the trials could be conducted as quickly as possible.

Obviously that doesn't mean anyone should be breaking the rules, but I think we worry a little bit too much about issues like variants (which need monitoring) rather than the fact that it does look possible to reach herd immunity (Israel might be approaching it) and to protect the vulnerable enough that our lives will return to normal.

I think that is true.  But the key word there is reduce - not eliminate.  herd immunity will occur when a sufficient number of people receive the vaccine so that the virus cannot spread.  But we are a long way from that or anyone thinking they are currently "immune" because they received the jab.  We will likely start approaching that by Juneish.

I don't think anyone is "immune", but I do believe that being vaccinated has so far shown that I am not likely to get nor transmit the virus. That's not nothing.

I agree entirely.  I was only commenting on the word immune.  The reason we are going to achieve herd immunity is because when large numbers do get vaccinated the virus will have nowhere to go.

[merithyn]

Given the virus type - and knowing its propensity for mutating - I can't imagine that we'll ever be "immune". No more than we're ever going to be immune from the common cold. What we need is to have enough exposure to not die from getting it, either via vaccine or getting it.

[Oexmelin]

Especially since we are leaving huge swaths of the world unvaccinated, and probably for a long time. Variants will continue to develop.

[crazy canuck]

Given the virus type - and knowing its propensity for mutating - I can't imagine that we'll ever be "immune". No more than we're ever going to be immune from the common cold. What we need is to have enough exposure to not die from getting it, either via vaccine or getting it.

Yes, the longer this goes on, the more likely that scenario becomes.  And with countries like Brazil in the mix, that might well be the case.  The nightmare scenario is that this mutates into something more deadly and easily transmissible but that is the long shot.  If this mutates to be less severe and more like the multitude of cold and flu viruses then it will be less concerning.  The current vaccination programs will likely stamp out the current versions of the virus, which is the important part (absent the nightmare scenario of course).

[Sheilbh]

Especially since we are leaving huge swaths of the world unvaccinated, and probably for a long time. Variants will continue to develop.

Yeah we need a massive global effort on vaccinations - especially in Africa where it's been minimal so far.

But I'm optimistic. We are four months into this and have only got a few vaccines but almost 800 million doses have been administered. Richer countries are (generally) ahead, but large medium-income countries are also rolling out at increasing pace - Brazil, China, India and Turkey are all somewhere between 0.25-05% of the population a day (and are up to about 5-10% already) and that is expected to increase with supply.  I think as supply increases and as the number of vaccines increase we can get a huge chunk of the world vaccinated this year (plus booster shots) and I think everyone who wants it within 18 months.