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> For instance if Delta has an R0 of 8, and we're 100% vaccinated, and the vaccine has an efficacy of 85% against infection, the resultant Rt would be 1.2:

For herd immunity, you also need to take into account that infected people—even symptomatic ones—are less infectious to others, if they're vaccinated.



Yeah, I'm familiar with that - I think that can be bundled into the efficacy number if you look at it as "efficacy against infecting others".

Last I heard, the CDC gave a 95% CI of the mRNA vaccines being 26% - 84% against infection (from Delta), and there's an additional 40% - 60% protection against infecting others (I've seen that estimate in multiple places but I don't know the source). If that's true, it suggests an overall range of 55.6 - 93.6 effectiveness against infecting others.


> I think that can be bundled into the efficacy number if you look at it as "efficacy against infecting others".

Absolutely, I'm just stressing it cause people have used the word 'efficacy' to measure lots of different things!




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