I didn't get COVID until after I'd been vaccinated. I know scores of other people in the same boat. I cannot say it's universal, but in my personal sphere, almost everyone I know who did get COVID were, in fact, vaxxed.
Do these studies differentiate between those who were vaccinated and non-vaccinated and acquired COVID?
Nearly all published studies on COVID, especially after 2021 (once vaccines were introduced), differentiate cohorts by vaccination status.
Some studies have multiple “controls”, one of which will be persons who’ve never contracted Covid (a pool that grows smaller as time goes on), another with people who’ve gotten Covid but have recovered; both of these are contrasted with folks who have gotten ill but went on to get Long Covid. As I say, nearly all recently performed studies will break these populations down further by vaccine status but also by virus epoch. It’s pretty detailed.
I too did not get Covid until well after multiple vaccinations. Breakthrough infections have become more commonplace. For the vaccine deniers, I think some of them forget or perhaps have simply not contemplated that the vaccines were an emergency measure, meant to aid stay-at-home orders so as to let the virus burn itself out. If people had actually followed these directives, and had the directives stayed in place long enough, the vaccines would have been perfectly effective for the task for which they were designed — a stop-gap measure.
Researchers will need to figure out a new design to future Covid vaccines, in my nonexpert opinion: there are other elements to the virus rather than the spike protein that could be modeled in vaccine design that may be better targets for stopping propagation. But who knows if there’s any incentive (that is, money) in that.
You are rewriting the history, Nova. We were not told these were a 'stop-gap' measure on an 'emergency measure'; we were told that the vaccine would prevent infection, prevent re-infection, stop transmission, lead to heard immunity, etc.
The vaccine did not prevent infection. It didn't prevent re-infection. Whatever immunity it created was ridiculously short lived. The mRNA vaccines came with horrible side effects, and never ever should have been given to children.
Also, re: side effects: the point of the vaccine is that the effects of the virus are still worse than anything the vaccine would confer. If someone had a choice of taking the vaccine and coming down with some post-vaccine injury, which absolutely does happen at a very, very tiny incidence, or getting the virus itself without any defense or priming of the immune system, that person is at much higher risk of serious harm.
Much has been made, for example, of the risk of myocarditis in young men who receive the vaccine. The rate of harm from the vaccine pales in comparison to the severity and the prevalence of harm caused by the virus itself in that very population. That’s why the vaccine is pushed as prophylaxis. All things considered, the risk is worth it, because otherwise the damage could be so much higher.
Of course we weren’t told that the vaccines were a stop-gap measure at the time. That was presumed. We were working inexorably to halt the virus in its tracks so it would die out and we wouldn’t need to vaccine anyone ever again. It was supposed to be a moonshot of an effort. This is why it was paramount that people comply with health officials and to minimize their movement and interactions. In time, the virus would burn out — unfortunately, taking a good deal of their host victims with them — and then we would be able to emerge as a society sans SARS-CoV-2.
Unfortunately, so many people rebelled against following any public health measures — not only refusing the vaccine but also rejecting the wearing of masks — that there was the equivalent of an ozone layer in the coverage against infection. About a fifth of the population (not including children, as chlidren were not among the approved subpopulations for the vaccine when it was first launched) decided against vaccination, which doomed us. There’s no way to reach herd immunity at that much of a discrepancy in coverage.
The vaccine would have prevented enough infection if people had also, in conjunction, minimized contact and did the bare minimum of health measures (washing hands, covering breathing holes, etc.).
Your skepticism makes it sound as though you think the vaccine was not at all effective, which is mistaken. That the immunity conferred through the vaccine — especially after the virus mutated to the form we now call Omicron, when the original vaccine was formulated for the wild type — is remarkably short-lived is lamentable, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. No one said it was going to be the type of vaccine that was lifelong. That was never the goal — the goal was to provide enough space that the virus would die out on its own. We didn’t do that.
Now, as for the vaccine itself, I personally would like to see it distributed twice a year, so as to address that gap in efficacy that you mention. If health officials are determined to have the vaccine available only once a year to most folks (although immunocompromised and the elderly are eligible to receive the vaccine twice a year), then the timing is correct — it should be done right around “cold and flu season”, which we can think of as “respiratory disease season.” But you seem to want to have it both ways, to complain that the vaccine isn’t effective AND that it’s short-lived. That’s reminiscent of the joke describing a person who complains that the food at a restaurant is terrible, “and such small portions, too.”
I didn't get COVID until after I'd been vaccinated. I know scores of other people in the same boat. I cannot say it's universal, but in my personal sphere, almost everyone I know who did get COVID were, in fact, vaxxed.
Do these studies differentiate between those who were vaccinated and non-vaccinated and acquired COVID?
Nearly all published studies on COVID, especially after 2021 (once vaccines were introduced), differentiate cohorts by vaccination status.
Some studies have multiple “controls”, one of which will be persons who’ve never contracted Covid (a pool that grows smaller as time goes on), another with people who’ve gotten Covid but have recovered; both of these are contrasted with folks who have gotten ill but went on to get Long Covid. As I say, nearly all recently performed studies will break these populations down further by vaccine status but also by virus epoch. It’s pretty detailed.
I too did not get Covid until well after multiple vaccinations. Breakthrough infections have become more commonplace. For the vaccine deniers, I think some of them forget or perhaps have simply not contemplated that the vaccines were an emergency measure, meant to aid stay-at-home orders so as to let the virus burn itself out. If people had actually followed these directives, and had the directives stayed in place long enough, the vaccines would have been perfectly effective for the task for which they were designed — a stop-gap measure.
Researchers will need to figure out a new design to future Covid vaccines, in my nonexpert opinion: there are other elements to the virus rather than the spike protein that could be modeled in vaccine design that may be better targets for stopping propagation. But who knows if there’s any incentive (that is, money) in that.
You are rewriting the history, Nova. We were not told these were a 'stop-gap' measure on an 'emergency measure'; we were told that the vaccine would prevent infection, prevent re-infection, stop transmission, lead to heard immunity, etc.
The vaccine did not prevent infection. It didn't prevent re-infection. Whatever immunity it created was ridiculously short lived. The mRNA vaccines came with horrible side effects, and never ever should have been given to children.
Also, re: side effects: the point of the vaccine is that the effects of the virus are still worse than anything the vaccine would confer. If someone had a choice of taking the vaccine and coming down with some post-vaccine injury, which absolutely does happen at a very, very tiny incidence, or getting the virus itself without any defense or priming of the immune system, that person is at much higher risk of serious harm.
Much has been made, for example, of the risk of myocarditis in young men who receive the vaccine. The rate of harm from the vaccine pales in comparison to the severity and the prevalence of harm caused by the virus itself in that very population. That’s why the vaccine is pushed as prophylaxis. All things considered, the risk is worth it, because otherwise the damage could be so much higher.
Of course we weren’t told that the vaccines were a stop-gap measure at the time. That was presumed. We were working inexorably to halt the virus in its tracks so it would die out and we wouldn’t need to vaccine anyone ever again. It was supposed to be a moonshot of an effort. This is why it was paramount that people comply with health officials and to minimize their movement and interactions. In time, the virus would burn out — unfortunately, taking a good deal of their host victims with them — and then we would be able to emerge as a society sans SARS-CoV-2.
Unfortunately, so many people rebelled against following any public health measures — not only refusing the vaccine but also rejecting the wearing of masks — that there was the equivalent of an ozone layer in the coverage against infection. About a fifth of the population (not including children, as chlidren were not among the approved subpopulations for the vaccine when it was first launched) decided against vaccination, which doomed us. There’s no way to reach herd immunity at that much of a discrepancy in coverage.
The vaccine would have prevented enough infection if people had also, in conjunction, minimized contact and did the bare minimum of health measures (washing hands, covering breathing holes, etc.).
Your skepticism makes it sound as though you think the vaccine was not at all effective, which is mistaken. That the immunity conferred through the vaccine — especially after the virus mutated to the form we now call Omicron, when the original vaccine was formulated for the wild type — is remarkably short-lived is lamentable, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. No one said it was going to be the type of vaccine that was lifelong. That was never the goal — the goal was to provide enough space that the virus would die out on its own. We didn’t do that.
Now, as for the vaccine itself, I personally would like to see it distributed twice a year, so as to address that gap in efficacy that you mention. If health officials are determined to have the vaccine available only once a year to most folks (although immunocompromised and the elderly are eligible to receive the vaccine twice a year), then the timing is correct — it should be done right around “cold and flu season”, which we can think of as “respiratory disease season.” But you seem to want to have it both ways, to complain that the vaccine isn’t effective AND that it’s short-lived. That’s reminiscent of the joke describing a person who complains that the food at a restaurant is terrible, “and such small portions, too.”