> Not sure what's with this "prevent" straw man, which seems to imply that vaccines need to be 100% effective, otherwise they do not work at all.
They don't need to be 100% effective, but they need to be reasonably effective in order to be mandated as a tool for mitigating the spreading. At the very least reliably above 50%, I would say. Otherwise they can only be a tool for personal risk reduction, because they don't reliably do something against the spread. An airline has no authority to mandate personal risk reduction that is not related to the flight.
OK. So are you now retracting your previous claim that "vaccines do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2"?
> but they need to be reasonably effective in order to be mandated as a tool for mitigating the spreading.
Sure. This is a judgment call probably best made by people who actually know what they are doing?
> At the very least reliably above 50%, I would say.
Since you previously believed that they were not effective at all, which is 100% wrong, maybe you are not the ideal person to make that judgement call?
> Otherwise they can only be a tool for personal risk reduction
This turns out not to be the case, for several reason. First, have you heard of the Swiss Cheese Model?
Lots of individual measures, none of which is perfect, together prevent calamities. And in aviation, all these measures are mandated, despite each individual measure not being super effective by itself.
Second, even a 20% reduction could be thing that suppresses the R value sufficiently to either not go exponential or to flatten the curve sufficiently to not overwhelm hospitals.
Third, even the, according to you, "purely personal" risk reduction of preventing severe outcomes is actually societal in a pandemic situation, because we don't have enough hospital capacity.
Fourth, I have seen no actual evidence from you for either (a) 50% being a reasonable threshold or (b) vaccine efficacy being below 50%.
Fifth, vaccine effectiveness at prevent spread increases markedly with fewer unvaccinated people. Vaccinated are far less likely to spread the disease.
So sixth, an airline is very well within its rights to prevent potential harm from its passengers and employees.
> OK. So are you now retracting your previous claim that "vaccines do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2"?
Why should I? It is true, because I was infected after getting vaccinated by someone who was vaccinated as well. There is a lot of data that suggests the same.
> Since you previously believed that they were not effective at all, which is 100% wrong, maybe you are not the ideal person to make that judgement call?
No, I didn't. Don't twist my words. I don't respond to ad hominems and after all you asked me for that answer.
> Fourth, I have seen no actual evidence from you for either (a) 50% being a reasonable threshold
>> > OK. So are you now retracting your previous claim that "vaccines do not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2"?
> Why should I?
Because it is false.
> It is true, because I was infected after getting vaccinated by someone who was vaccinated as well.
That does not make your statement true. The vaccines never prevented transmission at 100% effectiveness. Never ever. They were not marketed as doing so, and if anyone did claim they prevent transmission at 100% effectiveness, then that person was spreading misinformation. It was never true.
They didn't even prevent severe outcomes at 100% effectiveness, and they were always much better at preventing severe outcomes than they were at preventing infection. (Initially >90% vs. <~ 80% against Alpha).
The whole idea that one case of transmission proves the vaccines are ineffective at preventing transmission is silly.
> Don't twist my words.
I am not twisting your words. You were making a judgement call, which you are obviously not qualified to make.
> The whole idea that one case of transmission proves the vaccines are ineffective at preventing transmission is silly.
There are many cases. Mine is just the one where I know by 100% that the vaccine was ineffective at preventing transmission. However, the CDC itself says that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines cannot prevent transmission anymore:
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,"
Misinformation?
> Seems to be greater than 50% to me. Drops after that, but once again, it was always known that the effectiveness of the vaccine would be temporary.
Guess which efficacy is smaller than the efficacy against symptomatic disease? I am not sure if it was always known that the efficacy was temporary. In the initial phase some scientists speculated about decades. Actually we can only now know how temporary they are after testing them on millions of people.
> By saying who they allow to fly or not. You don't have to get vaccinated. United does not have to fly you.
Sure anyone is free to avoid business, but if you want to put people on nationwide blocklists, then that may be illegal.
>> I am sure we will see such questions being clarified in courts soon.
> Will probably be very short court cases...
Sure, if the pro-mandaters still don't have any good arguments and have to resort to ad hominems instead, I am sure it will be quick.
Again: this is 100% expected. Why is it surprising to you? Even if the vaccines were 90% effective at preventing transmission, which they aren't, you should expect millions of such cases when you have tens of millions taking the vaccines. And tens of millions of such cases when you have hundreds of millions of people taking the vaccines.
You seem to be genuinely surprised (horrified?) by the fact that there are such cases. Why is this so?
The CDC director's comments are not misinformation, but your misrepresentation of those comments could probably be classified as such, similar to the way Carlos Franco-Paredes (the Lancet letter writer) misrepresented the findings of the study: vaccines are no longer sufficient by themselves, so you need to do other things as well.
Or as the authors of the study wrote: "Although our findings support Franco-Peredes’ conclusion that vaccination status should not replace social and physical public health mitigation practices, the above clarifications explain why our findings do not support his assertion that mandatory vaccination of health-care workers would not reduce nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 transmission."
In the same vein, the CDC recommends vaccination as the #1 measure to help "stop the spread", despite your misrepresentations of the director's statement:
"Get Vaccinated and stay up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines
- COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing you from getting sick. COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death.
- Getting vaccinated is the best way to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
CDC recommends that everyone who is eligible stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines, including people with weakened immune systems."
> You seem to be genuinely surprised (horrified?) by the fact that there are such cases. Why is this so?
I am not horrified by the fact that vaccines do not prevent (and only slow) the spread of the virus, because as you said, that was always to be expected, but by the fact that people are trying to implement mandates on such a weak basis, while ignoring all the social fallout that comes with such mandates.
> The CDC director's comments are not misinformation, but your misrepresentation of those comments could probably be classified as such
"could probably be classified". So you acknowledge that you falsely accused me of spreading misinformation. Thank you for the discussion.
> [..] vaccines do not prevent (and only slow) the spread of the virus, because as you said, that was always to be expected
They "slow" the spread of the virus by preventing infections. A breakthrough infection is not a slower infection, it is an infection that happens at the same speed (in fact, a little faster overall because it subsides more quickly). All the slowdown is via infections that do not happen, and were thus prevented.
> So you acknowledge that you falsely accused me of spreading misinformation.
Not in the least bit. You were definitely spreading misinformation earlier, all over this thread to be precise. Your misrepresentation of the CDC director's comments is a slightly less clear cut case, because you might reasonably claim to have just misunderstood her, but the other cases are pretty crystal.
> They "slow" the spread of the virus by preventing infections. A breakthrough infection is not a slower infection, it is an infection that happens at the same speed (in fact, a little faster overall because it subsides more quickly). All the slowdown is via infections that do not happen, and were thus prevented.
Slowdown != prevention. You will just be exposed a bit later on average, but the spread still happens, just slower.
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Is a lie.
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines do not prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2.
Is a true statement. The one that you chose to attack for some reason that only you know.
Feel free to move the goalpost again. Or, you know... just accept the truth.
You have acknowledged that the vaccines prevent transmission, because that is how they slow the overall spread. You have acknowledged that it was always known that they do not prevent infections at 100% efficacy.
Your word games in constantly switching around individual and global definitions of "prevent", "spread" etc. are of no interest to me.
They don't need to be 100% effective, but they need to be reasonably effective in order to be mandated as a tool for mitigating the spreading. At the very least reliably above 50%, I would say. Otherwise they can only be a tool for personal risk reduction, because they don't reliably do something against the spread. An airline has no authority to mandate personal risk reduction that is not related to the flight.