Comment by bscphil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bscphil | Hacker News Reader

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> As far as I know nobody (other than bs "news" outlets) ever claimed covid-19 vaccinations would diminish the risk of getting covid-19.

> Nor vaccine manufacturers, nor virologists, nor doctors.

I... what?? The CDC literally still says this. (And they are correct to say it!)

The week of Feb 12, 2023, the incidence of COVID in the unvaccinated population was 137.32 per 100,000. The incidence of COVID in the vaccinated population without the updated booster shot was only 52.61 per 100,000. (With the booster, only 39.95 per 100,000.)

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-s...

In other words, being vaccinated continues to massively diminish the risk of catching COVID. And vaccination was, of course, much more effective in the early days before the spread of vaccine resistant variants.

Yes, I agree, but my point was that this partially sterilizing immunity was a "bonus" of a vaccine designed to mainly prevent hospitalization and death.

The main goal of vaccine manufacturers was never to make a vaccine that would stop the spread. And certainly not to stop the spread entirely, as in: if you're vaccinated there's 0 chance that you'll get the virus or spread it (this is simply not the case, despite what you quote).

As it turns out it DOES prevent spread, but it was never the main goal.

> being vaccinated continues to massively diminish the risk of catching COVID

Yes. I agree.

All these numbers are completely riddled with various kinds of biases and confounders, not the least of which is that someone who gets an mRNA shot is much more likely to socially isolate themselves in an effort to avoid infection.

70% of the population in the US have had two or more shots at this point. IDK if you've been outside recently but I'm pretty sure vaccinated people aren't hiding away in numbers that would cause anything even close to the massive discrepancies in hospitalization and death between vaxxed and unvaxxed.

is the data probably confounded to some degree? sure. Is it overwhelming despite that? yes.

In case you care to look at smaller amounts of data that won't have as many confounding variables, you could check out any of the many studies evaluating vaccine effectiveness among healthcare workers who would all have regular exposure to the virus.

Your comment above was in reference to infection risk, and now you've jived to discussing hospitalization and death.

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