It should also be said that during initial Covid when everything was chaotic, Chapman’s offered to make their freezers and refrigerated trucks available to help roll out the vaccine in a way consistent with required cold chain logistics. It seems they have also been reasonably accommodating of employees with contrarian views.
One of the notable things about those who hold these views seems to be their lack of regard for the rights of other people. I have some sympathy for libertarian ideas, but this lack of consideration for others can be limiting. Some on the left want freedom from social government and some on the right want economic freedom from government. Not that different, in some ways.
It’s not even libertarian. Libertarians should fully understand externalities. They are fond of saying, “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”
Somehow, some of them can’t apply the same logic to a pandemic situation in which merely interacting with others without being vaccinated increases the risk that you do them harm.
I’ve never actually heard it said that way, it’s usually the exact opposite:
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
This might be a subtle distinction, but it still places the libertarian in the privileged position, which is the point of the “Mah Freedums!” argument.
In this case, the libertarians will insist that the “fist” is a mask, and you can’t force them to literally put one over their nose.
To be honest, libertarians often can’t apply that logic to the environment (or education/health/social programs, public infrastructure, or any degree of societal regulation whatso ever).
If your entire worldview hinges on private ownership and individual freedoms, its not wholly inconsistent that you would put your desire to not conform to minor behavioural restrictions above others rights to live and exist in an environment free from vectors of deadly disease.
I’m not saying it is right or not pathologic, just consistent.
Let me rephrase myself with a statement that is not meant as an attack.
The standards for a letter are very different from a published peer reviewed study.
From The Lancet:
Correspondence
• Letters should be written in response to previous content published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine
• Letters for publication in the journal online must reach us within 4 weeks of publication of the original item and should be no longer than 400 words
• Letters of general interest, unlinked to items published in the journal, can be up to 400 words long
• Correspondence letters are not usually peer reviewed, but we might invite replies from the authors of the original publication, or pass on letters to these authors
The letter is an opinion piece of an author commenting on a published article. It is intended to provoke discussion and further study. The Lancet is not going to publish complete crap, it does need to have sources to back up claims.
It is unequivocally not accepted fact and is not any kind of smoking gun.
I’m not an expert in the field and since its just a letter rather than a full blown paper including methods, its a bit hard for me to tell exactly what they are saying, but my interpretation is that they are just pointing out that vaccinated individuals remain a significant vector for transmission. I don’t think that that statement is particularly controversial.
It isn’t saying that the Vaccination is ineffective, just that since its not 100% effective at preventing the disease and stopping it from being transmitted. As more people are vaccinated a larger percentage of the cases will be breakthrough cases, and so a higher proportion of new infections will be from vaccinated people.
I will retire from this thread for now. Till more data piles up on the efficacy.
But on a purely personal note. I am double vaccinated. But will refrain from boosters. I may actually have had Covid between my first and second shot. I am not sure the tests I took would have reliably detected a variant. But I was quite ill for a week with similar symptoms. I immediately fully quarantined and nobody in my contacts fell ill. For now I remain unconvinced of the mRNA vaccine efficacy. Appreciate the give and take of data given by all.
Okay, here’s the main point of the paper that is linked in that letter. The paper notes that this is household transmission, where exposure is huge relative to other types of exposures.
Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.
We found that the secondary attack rate in fully vaccinated household contacts was high at 25%, but this value was lower than that of unvaccinated contacts (38%). Risk of infection increased with time in the 2–3 months since the second dose of vaccine.
Vaccinated delta cases experienced faster viral load decline than did unvaccinated alpha or delta cases.
You may be trying to make a point but I don’t think you have the evidence. This doesn’t even take into account the more important reduction in risk of severe illness which was not the scope of that study.
The Delta variant became more dominant and is less lethal. So it would be unclear if vaccines are having an effect in fewer deaths or worse illness. It seems Omicron may be even milder. As the virus presents milder variants it will make the vaccines look better. While their loss of efficacy remains poor.
Yeah I just can’t quit.
Show me data on deaths of unvaccinated vs vaccinated during the delta surge. This would contradict data throughout several threads in this forum. In fact, you can search this forum and provide links, then provide a link to your new and contradictory data while providing the scientists’ explanation for the contradiction.
Claims of reduced lethality are highly contentious. A lot of people ran their mouth about a presumed lower lethality without taking into account the effect of widespread vaccination.