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Comment by RickJWagner | Hacker News Reader

28 pointsRickJWagner8 comments

The chances of hospitalization or death due to omicron are greatly reduced for individuals with two vaccines, and further reduced with a booster.

Any reduction in transmission rates pushes and deflates the peak, which is important because of limited healthcare resources.

He agrees with point 1 (although argues young people don’t need a booster as their risk is already very low) and argues point 2 isn’t really true as the reduction in risk of transmission wanes quickly and isn’t that strong to start with when it comes to the Omnicron variant.

Edit: Not sure why this submission keeps getting flagged. It’s from Vinay Prasad, Professor at UCSF and all claims are supported by data.

Addressed by the author here:

> NOTE: This is not an argument about the benefits of vaccination for the individual— vaccines likely (and evidence shows they) still have great protection against severe disease; instead this is an argument about the effects of vaccination on symptomatic diseases, and (some good portion of) transmission.

In other words, vaccines avoid hospitalization but zero Covid is not a reality.

This post seems to be addressing Europe rather than the US. From my perspective, the current policy goals in my area aim to keep essential services open. The unvaccinated are soaking up hospital capacity and other critical areas (e.g. schools) are struggling to stay open due to staffing pressure. Therefore, restrictions and mandates are still being applied to get people vaccinated. Boosters are offered to ward off infection which can smooth out the spread. I don't know anyone seriously entertaining a "zero covid" dream of the future.

2 shots and done. Ya’ll are crazy to keep injecting yourself with an experiment for something that is clearly becoming more cold like and less dangerous. If this was Ebola, I would be at the front of the vaccine line. But this is far from Ebola at this point. If you are scared, get a booster. It’s time to move on, the damage we are doing to our children is unconscionable.

"Experiment"

sigh, which part of which vaccine is an experiment?

The 270 days data (Figure 1) must be why Singapore decided you will no longer be fully vaccinated unless you get a booster within 270 days of your 2nd dose.

I wondered where that time period came from.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/booster-shot-m...

Letting fully-vaccinated status lapse carries risks. If you wanted to go on holiday abroad late summer, then it would make sense to delay getting the booster (so it will still be in scope), surely a perverse incentive.

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