Vaccines have never "prevented" transmission absolutely, so 100%.
They have always "prevented" transmission in some cases, so reducing transmission. At slightly lower rates than preventing severe outcomes.
Delta was 2x more transmissible than the first strain of Covid. Omicron appears to be around 4x more transmissible than delta, so 8x more transmissible than the original variant.
Even if the vaccines had been 90% effective at reducing transmission and was just as effective against Omicron, we would expect Omicron to spread in a fully vaccinated/boostered population just as quickly as the original variant spread in a completely unvaccinated population.
However, the vaccines were not 90% effective at preventing transmission of the original variant, more like 60-80% IIRC. And Omicron has mutated significantly, so effectiveness is further reduced. And of course there is a significant percentage of unvaccinated (partly due to "the vaccines don't work misinformation, sigh!), and the virus has a much easier time going from unvaccinated → vaccinated or vaccinated → unvaccinated than it does going from vaccinated → vaccinated.
So seeing high(er) transmission rates right now in no way "proves" that the "vaccines don't work at preventing transmission". Neither do anecdotes that do not contradict the actual evidence. Transmission rates would be a lot higher without vaccines.
> However, the vaccines were not 90% effective at preventing transmission of the original variant, more like 60-80% IIRC. And Omicron has mutated significantly, so effectiveness is further reduced. And of course there is a significant percentage of unvaccinated (partly due to "the vaccines don't work misinformation, sigh!), and the virus has a much easier time going from unvaccinated → vaccinated or vaccinated → unvaccinated than it does going from vaccinated → vaccinated.
Now Omicron is dominant and these earlier strains are not relevant anymore.
It is reasonable to expect that the virus will mutate more and faster, maybe even with many different strains that are relevant at the same time.
> And of course there is a significant percentage of unvaccinated (partly due to "the vaccines don't work misinformation, sigh!)
Most of Africa is unvaccinated, because they don't have the vaccine, while some countries are trying to enforce the third injection.
> Transmission rates would be a lot higher without vaccines.
That is not an argument for mandating vaccines when they only prevent the spread of the currently dominant strains with a very low probability or maybe even not at all. Actually I haven't heard of any good argument for that yet.
> Now Omicron is dominant and these earlier strains are not relevant anymore.
Yes they are, when explaining why "it's spreading quickly now" does not imply that the vaccines aren't effective.
They are.
>> It is common knowledge by now, January 2022, that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
And when you stop spreading misinformation like this, I will stop correcting you.
> Most of Africa is unvaccinated
What relevance does this have to your false claim that the "vaccines do not prevent transmission"?
> > Transmission rates would be a lot higher without vaccines.
> That is not an argument for mandating vaccines
You are right that it is not. Fortunately, that is not the reasoning for vaccine mandates, but just a rebuttal of your misinformation, such as:
> they only prevent the spread of the currently dominant strains with a very low probability or maybe even not at all.
No, they do not prevent spread at "very low" probability. Omicron is just much, much more contagious, so even with pretty high probability of prevention the rate of spread is high. This is why comparing with older variants is helpful with understanding the current situation.
You are also making the mistake of thinking of the effectiveness as a completely independent variable. But it is not. Overall effectiveness rises as the vaccination rates increase, because vaccinated → vaccinated has a lower probability of transmission than vaccinated → unvaccinated or unvaccinated → vaccinated.
And since Omicron is so much more transmissible than Delta, never mind Alpha, getting to a higher vaccination rate is more important than ever in achieving the desired societal outcomes.
Furthermore, every sick person puts a stress on the health system. With Omicron being so incredibly contagious, the risk of overwhelming the health system rises, meaning that other people suffer when you become sick, even if you don't infect anyone.
> Actually I haven't heard of any good argument for that yet.
Because they still prevent transmission, as they have done since the start and as was known from the start. They still prevent transmission in less than 100% of cases, just like they did from the start and was was known from the start and just like they do with severe outcomes.
Claiming that they do not prevent transmission is misinformation.
Claiming that there has been some sort of change in this knowledge is misinformation.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that Covid-19 vaccines are no longer effective at preventing transmission of the virus.
"...what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission. So if you're going home to somebody who has not been vaccinated, somebody who can't get vaccinated...
I would suggest you wear a mask in a public indoor setting,"
Claiming that the vaccine prevents spread is misinformation.
b) I doubt that it is true, though Omicron is a tough one.
c) The reason I doubt it is that this is a nonlinear effect, i.e. you cannot easily extrapolate from vaccine effectiveness at 65% vaccination rate to vaccine effectiveness at 91%, 99%, or 100%.
d) The more contagious the virus, the higher your vaccination rate needs to be, for reasons that I hope are obvious.
e) So, seemingly paradoxically, the more the vaccine seems to not be working (it actually still is, the virus is just mostly much more contagious), the better the case for vaccine mandates. We really, really need to starve the virus of hosts, particularly so we don't breed ever more variants.
f) Even if it were true that R would still be > 1 with a 100% vaccination rate, as long as the R rate is lower with the vaccines than it is without the vaccines, the vaccines are preventing (some) transmission.
> e) So, seemingly paradoxically, the more the vaccine seems to not be working (it actually still is, the virus is just mostly much more contagious), the better the case for vaccine mandates. We really, really need to starve the virus of hosts, particularly so we don't breed ever more variants.
This seems so unrealistic when most of the world's population is still unvaccinated and the virus can jump from and to animal hosts such as mice too, which seems to be the case with Omicron. So what is left? Mostly just the tyrannic aspect of vaccine mandates, besides of personal protection against severe diseaes for some of the few people who would not get vaccinated voluntarily and some prevention of transmission that does not provide any meaningful personal protection.
Under the current circumstances a more likely outcome is that everyone will be exposed to the virus, regardless of vaccination status and those who survive that (partially due to being vaccinated) will gain some natural immunity and this is what starves out the virus in the long run.
Especially when the vaccines do not prevent (most) transmission.
Why do you think that R would be below 1 with a 100% vaccination rate? In countries with 80-90% vaccination rate we still see massive spread. Handwaving about "nonlinear effects" doesn't cut it. Vaccine mandates are a very heavy tool, that needs very heavy justification.
There is no magical law of physics that ensures that a 100% vaccination rate gets R<1. It all depends on how transmissible Omicron is in vaccinated people.
The numbers are currently still in flux, but a reasonable current estimate is that two vaccinations are approximately 70% effective against hospitalisation with Omicron.
We also know that it is (much) less effective against transmission than it is against hospitalisation.
Even if it were 70% effective against transmission, that might still not be enough to get R<1 given the ease at which Omicron spreads.
Compare, say, with the measles, which has a natural R of about 10. With a 70% effective vaccine, it would still spread. Luckily we have a vaccine that is 99% effective against transmission, so it can be stopped. COVID vaccines are not nearly as good.
To give some indication from my country (the Netherlands) where 86.3% has been fully vaccinated, of the positive corona tests, approximately 66% fully vaccinated. We can see that this 66% is less than 86.3%, indicating that the vaccination is somewhat effective at stopping transmission, but that's still a heck of a lot of vaccinated people who can catch and transmit covid.
> Even if it were true that R would still be > 1 with a 100% vaccination rate, as long as the R rate is lower with the vaccines than it is without the vaccines, the vaccines are preventing (some) transmission.
Of course, but in the long run it would make little difference, because as long as R>1, then more and more people will continue to catch the disease, just over a longer period of time. Smearing out infections can be important if there is a shortage of hospital beds, but this can hardly be called "stopping transmission".
> The more contagious the virus, the higher your vaccination rate needs to be, for reasons that I hope are obvious.
Absolutely correct! And at a certain point, unless the vaccine is 100% effective against transmission, the vaccination rate would need to go above 100%, which is clearly not possible.
Secondly, many lifestyle choices affect the rate of transmission. The singular focus on the forcing people to inject something into their body against their will is unethical (note: I have personally been vaccinated). It is unethical not just because it violates bodily autonomy, but also because it is an easy way to abdicate from your responsibility to take care of your other lifestyle choices that affect the spread.
> We really, really need to starve the virus of hosts, particularly so we don't breed ever more variants.
Not going to happen. Even at a 100% vaccination rate it would still have many human hosts as the data I quote above show, but also because many wild animals now have COVID too. Unless they develop a new vaccine that is much more effective than the ones we currently have, there is no stopping it any more. We need to learn to live with it, like we do live with the flu. We are lucky that Omicron is so much milder than Delta. If you are fully vaccinated then the chances that you have serious illness are very very low. It for sure is terrible for old people and those with existing health problems, but we cannot realistically do anything about that, except for instituting Chinese level control. The response against COVID is at this point completely irrational and doing more damage than COVID itself. Not just economically (which directly translates into future deaths), but also because it is tearing societies apart.
They have always "prevented" transmission in some cases, so reducing transmission. At slightly lower rates than preventing severe outcomes.
Delta was 2x more transmissible than the first strain of Covid. Omicron appears to be around 4x more transmissible than delta, so 8x more transmissible than the original variant.
Even if the vaccines had been 90% effective at reducing transmission and was just as effective against Omicron, we would expect Omicron to spread in a fully vaccinated/boostered population just as quickly as the original variant spread in a completely unvaccinated population.
However, the vaccines were not 90% effective at preventing transmission of the original variant, more like 60-80% IIRC. And Omicron has mutated significantly, so effectiveness is further reduced. And of course there is a significant percentage of unvaccinated (partly due to "the vaccines don't work misinformation, sigh!), and the virus has a much easier time going from unvaccinated → vaccinated or vaccinated → unvaccinated than it does going from vaccinated → vaccinated.
So seeing high(er) transmission rates right now in no way "proves" that the "vaccines don't work at preventing transmission". Neither do anecdotes that do not contradict the actual evidence. Transmission rates would be a lot higher without vaccines.